In My Embrace sounds like the name of a doom band to me, but in fact it’s a two man black metal project from Sweden. This seven track EP is quite a mixed bag. They’re all dark, of course, but the fact that the tracks were composed over a nine year period is evident from the variations in style.
To start with, it’s swaying, fire-breathing thunder of a kind which reminds me of numerous Finnish bands. There’s a clear melodic element. It’s noticeable that these tracks all are carefully and meticulously structured. This shines through the intensely dark and fiery delivery. Each passage is precise. “To Forevermore” follows the title track. Again it’s clinically structured with an epic intensity which reminded me of Hypocrisy. It’s a decent track but I can’t say it fired me up. This may be to do with its clinical approach but also there’s a great deal of intensity, which comes across in the music and the lyrics which are like mini-treatises on the struggles of life and death. The acoustic-driven croaky and grim frostiness of “Av Skymning Kommen, Mot Gryning Går” (Twilights Come, Dawn Goes On) is this way for a reason: it relates to one of the band member’s near suicide experience. Traditional black metal returns with “Diabolical Masquerade” and that’s fine. The sound develops in the modern way of Windir or Vreid for a while but then the work closes with two delicate acoustic pieces of melancholy.
This is clearly a very personal work and I appreciated its intensity and at times precision. Because it’s such a collection of styles, its personal nature didn’t entirely transmit itself to me. I don’t know what the intention was, so I may be misreading this, but “Dead to Dust Descend” came over to me as more of a sampler than a complete work.
(6/10 Andrew Doherty)
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