Entry 471 - Borknagar - Quintessence

 

I've been doing this thing lately where I've been going back through my CD's and listening to what I thought were good albums back then. Most of the CD's I got were when I was much younger, and I'm really curious on how my tastes have changed over the years. Early Borknagar is the latest venture down this path.

Quintessence was the second album I got from the band. I got The Olden Domain first (because Garm was on vocals), and it blew me the fuck away. I had never heard black metal done with progressive tenancies before and the mix of clean vocals with the harsh was incredible. I quickly sought out another album from them and found Quintessance.

Quintessence saw a vocal change, from Garm to Vortex. The band still plays black metal, but they lean more into the progressive rock/metal tenancies on this album. So much so that one of the major instruments on the album is a Hammond organ. It sounds like it should be a horrible combination, but somehow it works here.

I think I need to revise my previous statement, I'm not really sure this is black metal. This is a fusion of black metal and progressive metal without really being either. There are harsh and clean vocals, there are also blasting sections, there's even the odd riff that would feel right at home on a black metal album.

On the progressive side the band has complex interactions between the instruments. The keyboards and bass in particular intertwine with each other in very cool ways, especially on songs like Revolt where the guitars aren't dominating the entire soundscape. The song structures aren't nearly as complex as most other progressive acts, but the music does have that ever changing feel to it which lends it some progressive tenancies.

Borknagar was really in some uncharted waters with this one. Perhaps one of the only comparable bands around the same time would be Solefald (ironically Lars from Solefald plays keys on this album as well). Either way this is an album that has withstood the test of time.