This White Mountain – The Final Sorrow
Release Date: 8th April 2022
Label: Halycon Recordings
Bandcamp
Genre: Black Metal, Progressive Blackened Death Metal, Post Black Metal.
FFO: Agalloch, Fen, 1914, Uada, Weigedood, Opeth.
Review By: Andy Spoon
Not traditionally a fan of Black Metal in its true form, I was skeptical that I would like this album from the get-go. Ultimately, I was surprised by many aspects of this rather short album, including some of the recurring musical themes, inspirations by death and thrash, as well as the continuity of the heavy atmosphere. This White Mountain is largely a project completely-controlled by artist Kevin Narowski, who takes over for vocals, guitars, bass, lyrics, and arrangements for each of the six tracks on the album.
One of the things that the listener might notice first is the length of the tracks, the shortest of the non-interlude tracks at 06:26, the longest at 15:00! There is quite a bit of contiguous material in each track, allowing each track to ebb and flow through its musical and conceptual themes without changing song. Some artists really screw this up, but Narowski is able to manage to keep the overall pace of the songs balancing between up, down, and interlude-based to such an extent that one song feels like one song, not two (or more), something that is satisfying to keep on, as the listener can cruise through the album without the desire to skip tracks, something that this reviewer finds to be a major “plus” in the development of an entire album.
The album starts largely on a blackened note, dissonant chord progressions over blast beats, with musical interludes breaking up heavy moments. After the first 3 tracks, the feel changes slightly to a blackened death thrash for a couple of tracks (Burden and Bleak Future) with guitar riffs on the lower spectrum, slightly deviating away from the blackened sound into something much angstier and “present” over the prior tracks, which are much darker and dissonant. The change is easy to follow, as the vocals don’t change, allowing the theme to be continued without monotony. In fact, it is something other artists ought to consider emulating.
The final track, The Final Sorrow, is a monumental 15 minutes in length; yet it feels more brief, as the movements of the song bounce up and down from post-black and melodic, to extreme and pounding blast beats, and then back to lonely, clean guitar over dark-sounding pad arrangements. The musical elements of the track The Final Sorrow are absolutely beautiful, wrapping the album up in a moody, melancholy wave of emotional black metal that is a real treat to experience. As far as production goes, any chaotic dynamics of the album are capped-off perfectly with the masterfully-polished final track, which deviates from the previous comments regarding continuity. This one free-flows in an out of several movements, and could absolutely be 2 songs if divided at an opportune moment. However, it takes nothing away from the sonic message, as the final moments of music take on a melodic form akin to The Ocean.
There are some things that are simply too-evident not to mention, however. The triggered drums are too clean, making it sound more programmed than it should. This is not something most listeners would pick up on, but it has the properties, sonically, to give the listener something to focus on other than the music, as it seems slightly too “fake” in some parts. I wish that there was some more reverb over the drums at certain parts to wash out the sonically-repetitive nature of triggered drums. Further, there are parts of the melodic interludes in which the mix favored the drums and bass more than the guitars, which could have amplified the theater of the musical mix had they taken the front of the mix.
Overall, The Final Sorrow is a fabulous foray into emotive post-black music with a heavy helping of thrash influence and dynamic variation that makes the listener forget they are listening to only 6 tracks. While it doesn’t sit comfortably in any specific genre, it ought to reach out to those who are heavily inspired by musical arrangement, but also want that face-melting black metal experience, perhaps something fans of Opeth would appreciate. If any of those elements speak to you individually, then the entirety of The Final Sorrow ought to satisfy you. 
(4 / 5)
