At this point in their career, Sweden’s Shining has gotten their sound refined into a well-balanced mixture of bleak, depressive melodies and aggressive riffing. While each of their recent albums has branched off of this base and tried different things, this commonality has allowed them to feel like natural progressions and given listeners plenty of reason to come back. On this year’s X - Varg utan flock this once again holds true, with the group offering the familiar riffing they do best alongside plenty of twists and turns.
Where its predecessor kicked things off with an extended intro, X - Varg utan flock starts off on the harsher end of the spectrum. The first half of “Svart ostoppbar eld” is focused on dense riffing that blasts away at the listener with brute force and jagged edges while Niklas Kvarforth’s menacing vocals tower over top of them. It initially seems as though the instrumentals might be returning to more traditional black metal a little more frequently than Shining has oriented towards in recent years, but around the halfway point there’s that familiar shift over to acoustic melodies that are sure to send shivers down your spine with their tonality. From there the riffs continue to twist and turn, and although the interplay between harsh and somber is familiar for this group this is the most balanced the two sides have ever been. Just when you’ve settled into the bleak and haunting melodies Shining shocks you back to attention with a sudden transition, and there are passages that will hook you throughout. Some of the album’s strongest moments come near the end though, as the extended acoustic intro and utterly desolate melodies of “ Mot Aokigahara” get under your skin before kicking back into high gear to put that last knife to your throat.
Shining’s always had plenty of substance to their guitar work that is capable of enticing listeners, but Kvarforth’s vocals continue to put the material over the top. His performance is as versatile as it gets, encompassing screams and growls that are drenched in grit as well as singing that heads in the completely opposite direction. What stands out the most is how often the pitches transition and how Kvarforth never loses any steam when moving from one range to the next, keeping the listener fully honed in on each and every word. The spoken word on the aforementioned “Mot Aokigahara” adds to the track considerably, and as a whole you can never predict what each song will bring to the table.
X - Varg utan flock feels like a natural complement to IX - Everyone, Everything, Everywhere, Ends, providing the same type of depressive, somber instrumentation alongside even more violent and abrasive black metal. If Shining’s particular take on this genre hasn’t convinced you yet this album isn’t likely to change that, but anyone that’s been drawn in by the group over the past two decades will find this to be another strong showing. X - Varg utan flock is out now on Season of Mist.
-Review by Chris Dahlberg
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