STRIBORG — Southwest Passage (review)

STRIBORG — Southwest Passage album cover Album · 2009 · Atmospheric Black Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3/5 ·
Vehemency
Although being extremely prolific with a dozen of not-so-worthy releases in his back-catalogue, every now and then this Australian project surprises me positively. Southwest Passage belongs to this category, being weirdly, well, musical for Striborg's standards. And that is indeed something when we talk about this certain band.

While Striborg albums are usually long, dragging and somewhat incoherent, Southwest Passage is enjoyable and manages to keep my attention throughout. The main elements are still to be found, of course: semi-lofi production, really twisted melodies created by both synths and guitars, and an overall ominous atmosphere. But this time the guitar riffs are more prominent (the title-track’s epic riffing being a good example) and luckily Sin Nanna has condensed his output into a 40-minute album instead of a prolonged 70-minute torture. Also, instead of long and always similar ambience tracks, we have just one ambient track that is an outro called ”Requiem for a Lonely Ghost” which shows more interesting approach to audial experimentation than most of his previous efforts.

All in all, Southwest Passage is the most coherent piece Striborg has released to date, thus making it a very listenable experience. If you haven’t liked Striborg’s previous albums this probably won’t change your opinion totally, but you might agree with me that it’s clearly an improvement from his earlier material. Worth of three stars at least and might deserve a half star more, but only time will tell.
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