The 3rd and the Mortal
Tears Laid in Earth

The journey through the forest of the desolate, wandering at the dawn of a pale and stunted sun trying to warm trees trapped by the tentacles of the boreal winter. These guitars weep, they never stop shedding tears, moving like pachyderms in the sonic sludge of a hundred long autumns, painting the frescoes of decadence, so thin and delicate in describing timid feelings of love and anxiety.

This work by the sad bards of Trondheim represents aesthetics at the service of emotional sensations that wish for silence but here magically enjoy the twilight melodies of one of the undisputed masterpieces of Scandinavian metal. All the elements introduced by the Norwegian sextet at the time serve to create a marvelous patchwork, languidly suspended between the unbearable melancholy of the riffing and the sentiment-drenched seduction of the sweet-shamanic-dark Kari.

The doom serves our purpose as a base to create an ancestral work, desperately anchored to the past of a dark and dreamlike folk but invested with pleasant breezes of psychadelia combined with dreamy female vocals to savor a faint future hope.

"Why So Lonely" and "Death Hymn", the cathedrals of the rainy sound of ours, rise as statues looking down, celebrating the sigh of loneliness, life in the forest away from inhabited centers, are pagan hymns of incredible sweetness and warmth. The leads tenderly embrace whispered vocals, now bringing us toward horizons with a sad gaze, now drying our tears like frost from tired eyes.

In "Shaman" the Rueslåtten's choirs wrap around long rides of dark guitars and ritualistic toms for a piece rich in mystical atmospheres, while the pearls "Vandring" and "Lengsel" celebrate the love for traditional music, bucolic frescoes of a Viking maiden suspended between the solemn charm of towering mountains and misty tongues enveloping lonely villages.

But it is in "Oceana" that I bow before such a demonstration of talent, a vortex of chiaroscuro sensations, dominated by the typical coldness of Norwegian riffs, so close to the sound of the wind through the pines..., punctuated by the shadowy soliloquy of the siren at the microphone, chiseled and enriched by class-crystalline fusion-ambient experimentations. The lapping of the waters at the end lulls us to the point of closing our eyes to dream of distant and unreachable sunsets.

I leave you with this masterpiece without spending further words on the artistic contribution it gifted to an entire scene, inviting you to grasp its emotional essence, to reach the dreamy and exotic climax that such sounds can provoke. The winds of the north roar.