The one-woman black metal and crooning folk-combo that has gotten popular in the last decade is a genre of metal that has produced mixed, and sometimes even bad, results. Both of these genres often get by on being strongly mood based, ignoring that what makes up good music is actual songwriting. As bad a reputation as this genre of music has gotten because of artists like Myrkur, when done right the music has the same kind of potential that bands utilizing beauty-an-the-beast singing show. Mixing beautiful and calm sounds with harsh metal contrasts can be done really well, as bands like Draconian and others have proven. When Emily Highfield released her debut Suldusk album Lunar Falls, I wasn’t particularly convinced. For its few harsh edges, the folk music did not particularly strike a chord, and the album just flowed by without making much of an impact. Anthesis took me by surprise because of this. The new album sees Highfield turn Suldusk into an actual band, and there is chemistry there for sure. The first proper song “Verdalet” makes this clear by bursting out in a black metal assault right away, and while it calms down into a segment of folk music, it eventually bounces back with the same theme and vocal hook returning for the end. The urgent riffing and double kick abuse featured on the heavier tracks recalls the blackened post metal of a band like Downfall of Gaia — it flows with strong dynamics and an acoustic edge that also steers near the waters of Agalloch.
The music on Anthesis stands out because of some good writing. While a lot of artists in this genre force contrasts between the folk music and metal, Suldusk shows growth in trying to meld the two in interesting ways. “Leven” is an example of this, starting out acoustic before a swelling electric guitar backs a drawn out vocal hook. “Sphaera” meanwhile focuses on building up to a vocal hook that comes close to sounding like Haken vocalist Ross Jennings‘ cadence. This puts a finger on one of the album’s main areas off success: Highfield has a good sense of vocal hooks and this does a lot of work to tie the songs together. The folk music is often balanced as well, not always staying on the path of making things pretty, but instead taking detours from pure mood by actively switching up chords and the mix of instruments used. However, the flaw that sinks Anthesis lies at the other side of this coin. “Crowns of Esper” and “Mythical Creatures” fall for the trap of staying in moody folk music for too long where nothing really happens (these two tracks make up 11 minutes of the album’s 46 minute runtime). It’s a shame as this hampers the flow of the album and upsets the delicate balance of folk and metal. As this band continues to grow, it will be interesting to see if they can find a way to meld all of their influences into something tighter and more cohesive. As it stands, Anthesis is at worst pleasant background music and at best a hooky post black metal album with good dynamics — proof of concept that has me hoping for next one.
