A lot of the 2010s in black metal has been dominated by a black metal sound that became known as dissonant black metal, building upon the sound that Deathspell Omega popularized a decade prior. A lot of it came from the Icelanic wave of acts like Svartidauði, Misþyrming, Carpe Noctem, or Wormlust, though it was obviously not relegated solely to that one scene. A particular highlight of that wave came in the form of Transmutation Of Wounds, a two-songs EP coming from a collaboration of names already associated or tangential to that wave, including H.V. of Wormlust, Alex Poole of Chaos Moon and Skáphe, MkM of Aosoth, D.G. of Misþyrming, Thorns of Fides Inversa, and Wrest of Leviathan and Lurker Of Chalice. Not only it becoming as much of a supergroup as one could want out of the disso-black wave, but also an international collaboration that solidified Iceland's place as a scene alongside the internationality of it all.
That EP hasn't been followed up on in a long time, and as interest in that scene subdued over time, it did seem like it was gonna be a capsule of a timestamp in black metal history, a moment in time short enough not to fully deliver on the promise of just two songs. As much as the supergroup status did overshadow the actual music on Transmutation Of Wounds, the Martröð name did remain in my mind. So when I saw a new release by the band, bringing such unexpected closure to the one loose end of the disso-black wave, I was beyond excited. To nobody's surprise, Draumsýnir Eldsins fully delivered in delivering black metal of that ferocious and suffocating kind that made me fall in love with this sound a decade ago.
Then I checked the lineup and I was baffled to find that so much of the band's DNA has changed. I was open to the possibility that not all of the people who participated on the EP would return for a follow-up a decade later, but as it stands there are more members missing than not, with the only two members still present being H.V. and Alex Poole. The two have collaborated a lot already, from collaborative albums between their projects to membership in the same band, and I was wondering why the need to revive the Martröð project with just the two of them instead of starting a new one, but then I realized that the two have released two other collaborations this year without me noticing until now. So yeah, point taken.
The difference between this Martröð album and either Osgraef or Vörnir, or even Transmutation Of Wounds for that matter, is that H.V.'s vocals take center stage, offering a nightmarish rasp that is so specific to this dissonant style and whose familiarity might be a big part of why I resonated with this album so much. Joining H.V. and Poole, who both also have guitar duties, are bassist Magnús Halldór Pálsson, one of the oldest active musicians in the Icelandic extreme metal scene starting with Forgarður Helvítis, and drummer Jack Blackburn, who played with Poole in a myriad of projects, including also with H.V. in Guðveiki.
Aforementioned vocals aside, the guitar play on this album is the right amount of intricate in order to leave a certain atmospheric emphasis while still feeling labyrinthine and nauseating. There's a lot of help on both fronts coming from the drum performance, which at times feels like a hypnotic continuous blasting and at other times breaking things up with fills. There's a heft given to the sound by the bass, and the atmospheric side of things is also aided by how dense the layering of all of these sides are. There are some cool things in the soundscape, from the cellos and the choir in the opening track to what seem to be some very slight synth touches, even though there doesn't seem to be any credited.
It's great to hear H.V. and Poole drawing up the inspiration to work on three separate projects together, with this one especially feeling like it closes a tab in my brain that kept reminding me that a certain black metal supergroup never went past the EP stage. Well, not really a supergroup anymore, but beggars can't be choosers. Now if only the last loose end would be tied up with a proper follow-up to The Feral Wisdom.
