Time Signature The soundless music of the lake...

Genre: melodic black metal

A lot of black metal is harsh and deliberately unpleasant, but every now and then you come across a band who takes the core features of black metal and wraps it in a lot of melody, making it accessible even to people who are otherwise not fans of the genre.

Põhjast is one such act. The cover artwork of "Thou Strong, Stern Death" does seem to indicate Norwegian-styled nihilistic black metal, but actually the music on this album is incredibly melodic. Make no mistake about it, though, many of the core features of black metal are there, most notably the picking style and the use of dissonant chords and tense harmonies.

However, rhythmically, the music is kept primarily at midtempo, and the stream typical black metal picking is occasionally punctured by more defined riffs, while simple but captivating guitar melodies pop up every now and then. The most outstanding feature is probably Eric Syre's vocal style. His singing has absolutely nothing to do with the traditional harsh black metal vocals. He adopts a much more rock-oriented way of singing, which does have a certain raw edge to it, but there are no screeches, no screams, and no growls. And I find his singing incredibly refreshing.

Purist black metal fans probably will not even accept this as black metal, but, for my money, "Thou Strong, Stern Death" is definitely worth a listen regardless of how you want to classify it.