Band:	Tersivel
Album:	To The Orphic Void
Style:	Extreme folk metal, Symphonic power metal
Release date:	February 2022

01. She
02. Weeping Iron Tears
03. Moving On
04. The Ferryman
05. Shivering Deadly Cold
06. Transmigration Of The Soul

Sometimes checking in with a band you gave a brief listen to once last decade pays off nicely.

When I saw news posted on here that Tersivel were putting out a new album, I immediately put it in my ‘to listen’ queue. The band name is embedded in my memory, but not necessarily for their music; in my younger and less ethical music-consuming years, I ‘acquired’ their debut album For One Pagan Brotherhood after a glowing review on this site, only to listen to it once and never again. However, as I would scroll through my digital library over the coming years, the album artwork and memories of the review of the Argentinian pagan metal band laid roots in my brain. I was curious to see how the band stacked up after all these years, and I’m very glad I took the effort to check out To The Orphic Void; however, it didn’t sound anything like I expected it to.

As one might expect from the name For One Pagan Brotherhood, Tersivel were a pagan/folk metal band on their debut record. The group haven’t been prolific in their output since, as To The Orphic Void is only their third full-length; however, time has certainly had an effect on their sound. If there are glimpses of that folk metal sound in their music nowadays, it is only in fragments. The opening song on the new album, “She”, is about the closest the group get to that sound, with the stirring chorus early on in the sound channeling some of that energy; however, more than anything, this is a progressive metal song, with a meandering structure that eventually takes the song through keyboard- and acoustic guitar-driven prog rock soundscapes. From there, Tersivel just move further away from what I was anticipating when I first pressed play on the album.

There are a lot of different elements that comprise the music on To The Orphic Void, but probably the most prevalent reference point is Gojira; from the dark tremolo riffs on “Weeping Iron Tears” through to the emphatic tapping-heavy climax of “Shivering Deadly Cold”, and even the dirty alt riffs midway through “Transmigration Of The Soul”, bits and pieces of Gojira’s The Way Of All Flesh-thru-Magma material appear scattered across the album. However, there’s more to the record than just tributes to the French metal heavyweights; the slick, moody introduction to “Moving On” ultimately progresses into proggy melodeath territory, while “The Ferryman” is full of proggy keyboard solos. There’s also a notable symphonic influence across the album that adds an extra degree of epic atmosphere to To The Orphic Void.

All these ideas come together nicely on the album; To The Orphic Void finds that sweet spot between making your influences clear while still producing a result that sounds fresh and exciting, and backs it up with memorable songs. I feel the album arguably goes from strength to strength as it progresses; “Moving On” has a nice subdued dramatic flair to it, while “Shivering Deadly Cold” moves impressively from contorted, complex riffing to a grandstand finale. “Transmigration Of The Soul” takes things even further, spanning over 10 minutes and traversing In Mourning-esque prog death, chunky alt-metal chugs and big prog-metal bombast.

All of this is great, and overall To The Orphic Void was a really pleasant surprise. However, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention my one gripe with the album: the vocals. The tone of the harsher vocals is not dissimilar to those in Regarde Les Hommes Tomber, but they do lack some of the weight of that band’s infernal roars, while the cleans lack depth, which dampens the impact of “The Ferryman” in particular. They’re not a dealbreaker, but they’re noticeably below the level of the songwriting and other instrumentation on the album to the extent that they do slightly diminish my opinion of it. With the Gojira influences so clearly in my mind, I can imagine how great these songs would sound with someone like Joe Duplantier doing the harsher vocals, with a Kjetil Nordhus-like figure taking on clean singing duties.

It’s not an insignificant weakness in my ears, but ultimately the sheer quality of the songwriting on To The Orphic Void outweighs it. Time has served Tersivel well; if they once stood out for bringing a very Nordic sound to a very un-Nordic location, they now stand out for developing a really solid and relatively distinctive modern prog sound that balances hefty riffs with melodic atmospheric grandeur.