Borknagar – Fall
Release Date: 23rd February 2024
Label: Century Media
Bandcamp
Genre: Progressive Metal, Black Metal.
FFO: Enslaved, Ihsahn, Leprous.
Review By: Kira L. Schlechter
“It’s always about moving the borderlines with Borknagar…There’s always another higher peak.”
The Norwegian band’s guitarist and leader Øystein G. Brun said this in the bio for “Fall,” Borknagar’s 12th album – an effort that has come to rest at the highest of those peaks.
The follow-up to the equally stunning “True North” (2019), the band, along with Enslaved, is leading the way of that country’s bands doing really innovative, boundary-expanding work, making metal that transcends the genre. Øystein, singer/bassist Simen “ICS Vortex” Hestnæs, singer/keyboardist Lars A. Nedland, guitarist Jostein Thomassen, and drummer Bjørn Dugstad Rønnow are a formidable unit at, yes, the peak of their power.
Øystein also said in the bio that the album’s theme is “the change of the seasons as we know them, but it’s also about universal struggle…the struggle against nature…surviving nature.”
Nowhere is this idea more clear than in the opener, “Summits,” whose intro dissolves away to a simply glorious guitar melody and then into the massive wall of sound for which they are known. Vortex’ handling of the verses is a perfect match for the subject matter, juxtaposing the challenges posed by nature (“the towering rocks … the sleet’s coarse lash”) with those posed by the personal (“as forces clash/In this our own expanse where lives unfold”). The second verse focuses more intently on the personal – “I seek out my solace, I shape my own life/Austere persistence, a mantra I keep” – but still parallels the naturistic – “I conquer the challenges, steep after steep.” Lars takes the lead in what might be considered the choruses, but Vortex adds a call and response to the last few words of each line, almost tethering them back earthward after Lars has sent them to the heavens. His emotional, almost cold tonality is reminiscent of Jon Anderson of Yes in its purity; it doesn’t skew metal, but it is so perfectly mated with the band. There are beautiful instrumental interludes – a pastoral acoustic segment, a swinging, lilting electric solo backed by the most tasteful drumming from Bjorn. But it’s the wonderful billowing ending – optimistic in its message – that really makes this track, where the natural world and the inner landscape become inseparable through metaphor: Lars exults, “Horizons await, where splendor enthralls/With each step I take on this stark boundless quest/I embrace the hardships, I greet every test.” And he never forgets what shaped him: “I carry my history, bold and serene.”
In the spirit of “True North”’s monumental “Voices,” “Nordic Anthem” is also a showcase for Lars’ wizardry, both vocally and in terms of keyboard effects. An anthem indeed, built on primitive percussion and a divine wordless multitracked croon that sets off each section, the verses are a defiant near-drone, punctuated by booming low-end riffs: “No chains can bind us/Shackles cannot hold/The Northern spirit cannot be sold.” Their only religion is nature and a respect for history: “We bow our heads to nothing but our past/Our breath is cold, we know our history will last.” “We won’t bend our necks to any god,” Lars asserts throughout.
The blending of acoustic and electric guitars at the beginning of “Afar” is akin to the blending of the two singers and the band’s overall melding of brutality, soaring melodicism, rhythmic shifts, and vast, proggy breakdowns. Vortex’s first verse is underscored by an almost Eastern-sounding flourish after each line, while Lars’ dreamy subsequent sections are set to completely contrasting tempos. This too is about finding completeness in nature, of course most profoundly in the frigid North, “in infinite whiteness,” “a transcendent place where rain merges with snow in delicate grace,” in “this primordial drama where our lives unfold.” “I belong forever,” he sings, “where mountains and streams hum their ancient song,” while Vortex is struck by “At zenith I watch as the earth meets the sky/Profoundest of unions, quintessence of ‘I.’” Lars echoes that idea later himself when he sings, “I will blend with the essence that nature provides.” That is one of Borknagar’s many gifts, their ability to make one feel that connection to things greater than ourselves, that transcendence.
“Moon,” again alternating musically between dense and sparse, is a stunning ode to the closest celestial object, one that has captivated mankind for eternity. But in lyricist Vortex’s hands, and sung by Lars, the theme loses any cliché and becomes nearly an indictment against us humans who want to possess it. We go from “howling adorer” in “awe aghast” to “The lunatic advance/Aim to control/The shiny shiny object/Mounted scope in hand.” His wordplay and imagery are just superior – “The moon tonight/Out of reach yet dead in sight/You don’t understand,” that is, it’s so close, we can see it so clearly, but it is still inaccessible. He continues that musing, almost frustrated train of thought: “A halo fills the circle in my scope…And in all its glory, all of a sudden there it is,” but in a delightful bit of punnery, he notes “Armstrung out (get it?)/But nothing there.” In another bit of cunning metaphor, he references space exploration: “Spit fire/Raise hell/To warm the void/One more day/The distance is the key.” But the last few elegant lines are the real treat, where he compares the moon to his own inner suffering – “I saw craters/I saw pain/What it project/I had in check” – and at last realizes “the wisdom of the moon: You shine when you are shined upon,” you reflect what is reflected on you.
Borknagar’s influences are so apparent in something like “Stars Ablaze.” Their song structure is loose, a la prog and black metal; they fear neither song length nor tangent, truly going where the muse takes them and subsequently leading an aural journey that is always surprising, always captivating. This depicts how the violence and savagery of nature (“Raging storms thrash the coast of our land/The wild water beats, our vessels command/The seas bellow deep, fierce and wild”), along with its benevolence (“From threats they sail, to waters mild”) and its beauty (the gorgeously tangible, kinetic references to the Northern lights, “Jade flows above, like a lucid stream” and “the glimmer, the emerald haze…A masterpiece of light with each celestial rush”) has made us what we are. It made us resilient, made us one with it, with no need for divine guidance (“We walk our paths, the maps in our blood/Fathers and sons, in the absence of god”). “The starlit sky” is “our undying guide,” we find solace and solidity in it, “our spirits abide.”
Despite repeated references to “Sisyphus’ boulder,” that ultimate symbol of futility, Lars rather nails what it’s like to create art – in the form of songwriting – in “Unraveling.” “To weave these stanzas, strong and grand,” to draw reason – the lyric, the poem – from chaos – of your thoughts, of a myriad of possible ways to express yourself – all to get to those “fleeting moments in a tumultuous sphere.” The judicious intertwining of the voices is just so effective. Lars murmurs lines like “In realms of reason’s perplexing guise … I wander amidst conundrums deep,” while Vortex gives animalistic vent to the deeper frustration – “Where logic’s chains shatter, new questions arise,” using natural imagery to personify the workings of the mind (“Where boulders and mountains form reason’s keep”). There’s that moment when you think you’ll never master it: “Absurdity, enigma crowned/A paradox, all reason’s drowned/A cosmic jest, a taunting spree/Meaning’s demise, void of intellectuality.” But eventually, the realization comes that it’s worth it to keep struggling for meaning, that it’s the struggle that gives the meaning – “Absurdism, the poet’s creed/Where reason fades and wills succeed/Oh, thinker’s spirit, never cease to inspire/Let’s dance with chaos and never tire.” That abrupt ending on the Sisyphus line – so cleverly reprised here – is a warning that it’s still never going to be easy, though.
“The Wild Lingers” is the most straightforward song here sonically and structurally, with a languid, relaxed groove. Soulful solo guitar in the intro becomes pizzicato in the second verse, and Lars’ surging keyboards give the chorus its swelling poignancy. Lars and Vortex – here in his clean vocal mode – swap stanzas in this love song to nature, filled with vivid detail – of trees, “Their gnarled branches curl like ageless hands,” of “the orchestra of life” found in the forest “through rustling leaves and sunlight’s golden runes.” It lingers despite us, and lures us with its “ageless melody,” with its “soft embrace.” Simple, and simply beautiful.
The epic, cinematic finale “Northward,” then becomes the logical conclusion to where “The Wild Lingers” was leading, the complete surrender to nature, and not just ordinary nature, but that of the north – summer’s “damp embrace” is for losers. “I find solace profound,” both Lars and Vortex avow in their different approaches, “In our lore, where frosted tales resound … where desolation holds its strange allure.” The “whiteness,” the “vast expanses of icy terrain,” build character and resilience – “Amidst the harshest beauty, we endure” – the “aurora’s dance” where “an opus weaves” is understood only by its natives, “with notes only a northerner retrieves.” (Throw your lyric sheet out the window on this one, though, because they are not as written – I had to number sections to track them!) By the end, the decision has been made, Lars and Vortex melding their clean vocals in the ultimate “I’m outta here”: they’ll be “Embracing the untamed, cold, and pure/Until reality comes knocking at the door … the only place to be, to live until released/To shape the mountains for posterity,” that last word ringing with finality like a door slamming shut. It is as perfect a mix of prog and black metal as it gets, sweeping between megaliths of noise, wah guitar, and moodily introspective melodic passes in a blink.
A masterpiece. Nothing more really needs to be said. 
(5 / 5)
