Höstblod
Mörkrets Intåg

When darkness arrives, you must be ready to face it, to make it your own, embrace it and live it without being swallowed, if you want to see the dawn again. You need a fire inside, a light capable of illuminating your path: you don't need to see far, you just need to understand where you set your feet, step by step, so you don't end up in some abyss.

When darkness arrives, it's often accompanied by emptiness, a feeling of apathy, desolation, despair, and helplessness in the face of something you perceive to be larger than you. And it's there that your fire must shine more brightly, it's there that you truly risk "falling."

When darkness arrives, it may take a piece of you, or your heart, leaving in return the emptiness. Hugs are missing, caresses and sweet words become just a memory, and a life cycle completes with the earth that embraces its child again, only temporarily loaned to life.

And what remains afterward? Silence, which is not emptiness, mind you. Silence carries with it many meanings, many whispers, questions, and thoughts that chase around your head for months, perhaps years, before you can untangle the ball of memories and make sense of what happened. And only then can your internal light dim, only temporarily, to give way to the rising day. But the light will always be there, a vigilant flame ready to intervene when darkness again peeks into your life.

Behind Höstblod hides Johan Nillsson, a Swedish musician who comes to this black metal-like project only for expressive necessity, for relief. "Mörkrets intåg," roughly translatable as "When Darkness Arrives," is his first full-length, a bolt out of the blue that strikes for the expressive urgency that guides and permeates it through the six tracks that make up the album. A "depressive" black metal to give a few more coordinates, but not too much: strongly atmospheric, changing, and progressive with shades that often veer towards so damn melancholic and autumnal classical guitar parts. And even the scream often gives way to an intense and emotional clean.

The album was written during a period when Johan's mother was diagnosed with an illness that eventually led to her passing: clearly, within these pieces, there is all the anger and sadness of the musician, but they also serve as a relief valve, a rite of passage to exorcise this evil.

It's difficult for me to talk about such an album both for personal reasons and because a listen like this does not lend itself to the summer season. Yet "Mörkrets intåg" hits the mark, touches very deep chords, and is pleasant to listen to, confirming itself as a highly recommended listen for those who love these sounds but also have an open mind to go beyond.