Style: Folk, black metal
Primary Emotions/Themes: The overwhelming beauty and harshness of nature
Thoughts: Grift is one of those projects that always seems to flirt with greatness. This dude is capable of writing absolutely incredible music, and I wish that just for once he would put it all together and make the album I know he can. Arvet is as close to that as I've heard from him.
Let's start with the good. The folk and acoustic work on this album is incredible. It's easily some of the best neo-folk I've heard in a long time. I want him to embrace this side more and expand the sound because this is where his true strength lies.
Den stora tystnaden is the perfect example of this. The first few moments of the song consists of a pulsing drum and an acoustic guitar strumming a simple melody. It sounds generic, and maybe it is, but it's so damn effective I can't ignore it. As the song progresses the melody picks up and a lead is played by a an electric guitar that fades in and out. The vocals sound like a pained wolf howling for a fallen pack member. It's an exceptionally strong start to a song.
When the metal does come in it continues with the same melodies and structure that the acoustic portion had, and it's all the better for it. This is the exception rather than the rule for the black metal found on this album though, most of it is not nearly to the same level as the acoustic work.
The opener for instance, starts out in a similarly amazing way but as soon as the metal starts the riffs become generic and uninspired. It's like all the songwriting that was there with the folk work is lost, and he relies on black metal tropes to fill the void. It's a damn shame. Even in the aforementioned Den stora tystnaden the metal eventually devolves into a blast beat and minor chords towards the end. It's so boring in comparison... so much wasted potential.
It's not just on Arvet either. Almost all of Grift's discography is like this: amazing acoustic work, poor to middling black metal. The two styles are seemingly incompatible with Erik's songwriting ability. I've heard that the newest album (Dolt land) has gone full acoustic folk. I'm curious to see how that sounds, and if it can live up to the potential that is set by these earlier albums.
Written February 22nd 2024
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