I Am The Night – While The Gods Are Sleeping
Release Date: 6th May 2022
Label: Svart Records
Bandcamp
Genre: Black Metal
FFO: Dissection, Emperor, Mayhem.
Review By: Rick Farley
Black Metal to this day continues to be one of my favourite genres of Metal. It could be argued that it’s metal’s most diverse one, too. If it maintains a few basic elements, there’s really nothing off limits. Hell, even most music styles can be blackened to some degree. For me, it’s the pure lack of musical restraint that endures me to it. It’s grandiose, raw and unconventional with little regard for “rules.” And by “rules” I simply mean musically, some of the extracurricular stuff is just pure craziness. For the most part, and especially nowadays, you can play anything within the Black Metal realm and totally get away with it. Even good production is acceptable these days.
In my opinion, the best period for Black Metal was the early to mid-nineties with the likes of Emperor, Dissection and Mayhem. The absolute pinnacle of purity. So, when a band comes out in modern day that brings the nostalgia back from those days, and still sounds fresh and exciting, everyone should check their grimness, bust out the corpse paint and really take a listen.
I am the Night hails from the deep valleys of Kymi in southernmost Finland and is comprised of some underground titans of Finnish Metal. Containing members of Insomnium, Horizon Ignited, Omnium Gatherum, and Paradise Lost. The bands origins date back to the dimly light subterranean rehearsal space of the mid-nineties, where the fires of Markus Vanhala and Janne Markkanen’s Black Metal zeal were ignited. Their debut record While the Gods are Sleeping along with Okko Solanterä and Waltteri Väyrynen was birthed during the heaviest blizzard Finland had seen in years. Holed up in the studio in the height of the pandemic, the bands morbid visons came to reality.
While the Gods are Sleeping is a passage back in time to sinister melodies and raw savagery. Synth driven dark atmospheres serve as a backdrop to the icy infectious riffs and finesse filled drums of The Owl. The song midway brings in a little familiar chord progression often used in Insomnium songs that brings a hopeful ambience to all the darkness and twists it upside down with several key changes and demented Choirs. It makes the bit of sombre hope felt by the chord changes feel deranged and gnarled. The ungodly raspy vocals are layered with a thick demon like growl in between the eerie clean choirs that give the track an infernal hellish feel. Furious tremolo picking and blasting underneath, feverishly bringing everything to its seething climax.
Dawnbearer is a song full of frost-bitten melodic majesty and feels like a love letter to Storm of the Light’s Bane, which may be the greatest Black Metal album ever written. Dawnbearer has a quick pace with razorblade like riffs and nocturnal melodies accompanied by the higher pitched raspy vocals and thrashy drums. The song slows to showcase atmospheric synths, heavily distorted guitars sustaining and low spoken verses possibly conjuring the triumphant powers of darkness only to end with the wrathful nature that it started with.
Ode to the Nightsky features a playful but snaky guitar melody that appears off and on throughout the song. With the huge, thick walls of guitars and synths viscerally crushing everything in sight, the melody teases vile thoughts and horrors to come. A brilliant mix of playful eeriness and pure sonic demonic possession. Every song brings a bleak dread merged with memorable catchiness and epic melodies.
While the Gods are Sleeping is full of intense dark atmosphere, rich but ominous sounding choirs add ritualistic flare to the diabolically possessed vocals. The precise blast beats and thrashy double bass bring down the heavens with Mephistophelian potency. The abrasive guitars, trebly bass and layered dark synths besiege the soundscape like burning angels illuminating the night sky. Untethered by modern conventions, I am the Night have gloriously resurrected a timeless sound of a genre keen on authenticity. The band embodies the darkness felt from those classic albums and freshens everything up a bit.
Their wonderfully unique label, Svart Records, states “Seldom has an instant classic band reached our ears, where we are certain that it will bring hordes of new initiates ready to declare I am the Night to be their favourite new ray of darkness.” And I happen to agree. 
(4.5 / 5)
