I had no clue what to expect when looking at the odd album cover for Akt III: Erlösung. Some kind of raw black metal produced into harsh noise? Austrian one-man act Narzissus turns out to be a neighbor of that genre: melodic black metal, but not any kind of meloblack. Sure, that genre often uses folk music influences and epic sounding melodic leads to pace out its tremolo assault, but Narzissus have more progressive leanings.
Akt III: Erlösung remains varied and rarely lets the black metal reign for too long before taking a turn. At first it is a bit overwhelming but the melodic nature of the album lends itself well to these kind of left field-turns. You might not notice this at first, as the traditional heavy metal-infused opener “Empor zum Ideal” features a breakdown to an introspective electric guitar tune with female vocals over it. So far so good, right? It’s meloblack. But you might notice that the singer, credited only as amara, is singing in Finnish. An odd feature, but it adds a character that defies the cheesy epic nature of the genre as a breath of fresh air (you Finns will have to cringe alone in your corner of the world). But the real curve-balls arrive with “Vanitas/Victoria”, a song that has a straight flamenco breakdown. It’s quite a piece of work with urgent, thrashy black metal, scale running riffs, said breakdown, and a noodly clarinet to finish things off in less than six minutes. Other times I am reminded of the playfulness of Sigh as the music slides into classical music for a moment (“Im Glanze baden”), and different still Narzissus carry shades of Thy Catafalque with the Finnish amara featuring on several tracks.
The black metal does not always manage to keep in step with the restless nature of the album though. The title track is probably the best example of this, as it is more or less a twice as long version of the opener, with the same kind of calmer breakdown and clean vocals. This has the effect of making the album take its time before it feels like something is actually happening, which at first caused me to hear straight meloblack with some Gothenburg lead-work. But eventually the hooks sink in and this misstep feels like a minor fault in the face of what the album manages to do right: it delights in its variety and softer moments. As “Der größte Lohn” closes the album out with soulful clean vocals, raging black metal, neoclassical riffing, piano, saxophone, bouncy folk music (Sponge Bob-mode?), and dual guitar harmonies, I realized that it has been way too long since I enjoyed a melodic black metal album. It would be a shame if the Narzissus project stays dormant for too long as its creator Erech Leleth suggests on his Instagram, as it feels like it’s only getting started.
