3 out of 5

Label: self-released

Produced by: Drøüyn

I like that when you see pictures of Drøüyn for Alder Glade, he’s often pictured in the woods – in rather overgrown, ancient-looking environs, but outdoors, surrounded by the greens of nature. It’s a fitting dichotomy for his music, which is steeped in gloom metal tradition, but also moves it out from the caverns and, if not into the light necessarily, at least to a place where light might peak through a canopy.

For Sightblinder, the two-man punk outfit of which Drøüyn is the guitars and vocals half, the media image is this busted and faded black and white joint, with the duo in leather jackets and looking all tuff. Not that they’re doing a bit, but, like, yeah, they’re doing a bit: for all the artistry pumped into Alder, sometimes Drøüyn (and fellow Aussie gloomer Drugoth on drums) just wants to thrash… albeit still within the framing of black metal. And it’s an absolutely solid thrash / punk release in that regard, employing Drøüyn’s “upscaled” doom metal production that maintains enough reverb to give you the roots but allows for enough crispness so that the beats and riff have punch. Punk is also probably a bit too concise sounding, given the 4-6 minute track runtimes; Sightblinder makes sure to cycle through more than just three-chord workouts here, and probably gets closer to the alternative grungey death metal style of Bergraven, but I think the spirit is pretty thrashy – there’s a lot of forward momentum, and a lot of reliance on Slayer-like chugga breakdowns.

Lyrically: no surprises. I don’t mean to diminish the material, but let the album title pretty much summarize the tone of every song.

Overall, this is a lot of fun, but given Drøüyn’s broader experimentation with Alder, it’d be nice to have brought in a bit more of that in here.