3 out of 5

Label: Orko Productions

Produced by: Drouyn

With Drouyn’s earliest Alder Glade material having pushed against the sometimes limiting confines of black metal, its been fascinating to listen to their journey over somewhat sporadic releases. The earnestness of that initial material – a descriptor that seems so inappropriate for the oppressiveness of the genre, but also probably why AG made an impression on me – has been refined and elevated in some respects, as Drouyn’s skills in the studio and relative patience with their compositions has increased. At the same time, AG has become kind of more traditional in a sense; a kind of against-the-norms approach gave polish and definition to a scene that prizes rawness, and now the artist can’t help but invite that rawness back in… but play it and produce it with that same polish. That’s a very unique puzzle, but it can sound rather amusingly accessible, as Holocene Extinction’s eight tracks offer keys and layered vocals and some complex changeups in drumming and guitars, applied in a kind of rounded-edged version of the howls and pounding drums typical of the scene. This is more notable on tunes that push beyond an average 8-minute mark – so the album’s bookends – which lean towards drone, but aren’t quite reverby enough to hit a sweet spot for effecting this via black metal. The inbetween tracks are where AG works more impressive magicks, letting the thrash reign for just long enough to be immersive, before hitting us up with some metal riffage and swerves toward melody.

Drouyn has found their way back to “traditional” black metal, juggling a classic production sound with a lot of learned studio wizardry for a really pleasingly accessible – but still true to the artist – take on the scene. That said, I hope this gives the artist license to wander back towards some of the more notable experimentation of their initial releases on later albums.