A Gate? How is a Gate Confusing?

 

    As I have grown more and more accustomed to darker, more extreme music, outside of the realm of industrial (boy that genre can get eerie and depraved) I find much of the blastbeats, pained wails, and dissonant clashing notes to be sonic textures, making up the segments of a soundscape, or colors coming together to create a deep dark painting. Many may label these characteristics as dark, unsettling, or unmusical. I relate this to this sense of cultural adaptations or programming that we all inherit over the course of our lives. Put simply, things start to feel more normal the more we are exposed to them. This adaptation has led me to a wide world of appreciation for many dark and oppressive sounds in metal. The work that I will be spotlighting today transmutes black metals often times bleak atmosphere into something liminal and psychedelic, culminating in a work that surprisingly reminds me of humanness, of effortful expression, and play.
    Yellow Eyes is a black metal band formed by the brothers Will and Sam Skarstad, their newest album conveniently released on Halloween is titled “Confusion Gate”

 I find the cover well fitting, at times looking how the music sounds. With mist, and an air of uncertainty in the face of this looming statuesque figure, suggesting an other worldliness. This dreamy backdrop corresponds with the lyrics, as Sam states in a recent interview how his writing process is informed by stream of consciousness abstractions of thought. It doesn't make too much sense, and hes not trying to make it make sense. That being said, the realm of fantasy was a focal point of this introspection, you may notice bells chiming and at times a saxophone that I completely mistook for a flute(most notably the intro on track 2) amidst the cacophony as well as guitar interludes that I cant help but describe as medieval. With elusive lyrics describing cold hooves marching on red mud, blind hands that pull on rope, and falling figures sinking into the dark. Knowing the writing process makes these lyrics slightly amusing to read as it becomes more of a mysterious and edgy word mad lib, but taking a serious gander lends it a surreal and evocative set of poetry that will never be heard because it is all screamed unintelligibly! 

    These fellows initially piqued my interest because I heard their sound described as weird. I was further prompted to try them out because of a story the brothers told during an interview. The two were living in Prague at the time, and went to a black metal show on the outskirts of town, they couldn't make out what the writing in Czech said, but upon arriving, they noted how nice everyone was, being greeted with open arms and being referred to as brother, they also very quickly noted the swastikas. They then promptly left for reasons related to nazism. The unfortunate thing about black metal is that many of the big players in the emergence of the scene held these beliefs, creating a safe space of sorts for nazi rhetoric, and warranting music enjoyers to create the subgenre label of NSBM, standing for national socialist black metal. I would rather listen to metal from people whose faces I don't want to punch, and so I'm awarding five points to Yellow Eyes for that at least.

    This release comes after a departure from black metal in the album, "Masters Murmur", a dark ambient folksy release featuring dueling archaic guitars, field recordings, and the characteristic distant howls of someone seemingly in pain. Confusion Gate seems to me to be a expansion of the atmosphere of Masters Murmur within the familiar black metal context, with overlapping melodies being aided by distortion and tremolo picked guitar.

    Overall I think that this is a notable work within the vast sea of overdone tropes, juvenile nihilism, and hatred found within black metal. I am still digesting it, but it does bear repeated listens. This is a heavy record, but not a harsh one, the production is clean, and it is full of twisting melodies that are characteristic of Yellow Eyes sound. There is a push and pull, breathing room is founding in wistful motifs. Can it feel a little repetitive at times? Yes, though that also lends a hypnotic nature to it, Will described how he wanted the sound to be one that flows like a river, and I find myself floating within it pleasantly. And hearing about Sam and Wills Skarstads process and views makes it all more worthwhile. Kurt Vonnegut once described writing as feeling like an armless legless man with a crayon in his mouth, and these two brothers are no different. They lose sleep over the refinement of their work, they play constantly together, sometimes working on songs for months until realizing that it was never up to snuff. I cant help but hold respect and reverence for these qualities and find comfort in them as someone that plays. This is not music that will win awards or appeal to the masses, but it is loved by lovers of metal, and will serve as a beacon for weirdos like me to enjoy and connect with with for times to come.