Review: SkyThala – Boreal Despair

Style: avant-garde/symphonic black metal (harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Blut Aus Nord, Gorguts, Emperor 
Review by: Andy
Country: United States
Release date: 18 Novemeber, 2022

I love writing long, winding sentences full of cascading clauses and too many commas, but most of the music I cover doesn’t so easily lend itself to my stylistic preferences; however, every once in a while an avant-garde black metal band like SkyThala releases an album so sprawling and complex that I can afford to get cheeky with my language, allowing me to flex with over-the-top prose to adequately describe such a monumental, once-a-year release. SkyThala, in fact, play a type of avant-garde black metal, one which is steeped in Stravinsky-esque Russian high modern classical and general aesthetic maximalism–jagged, dissonant riffs melt your face as they burn fierce and bright until they smolder away into embers of symphonies of horns and woodwinds or choral synths. I will go ahead and claim in my intro that this is one of the most impressive black metal releases of the year easily (only surpassed by the avant and experimental juggernauts Imperial Triumphant and Bríi), and I’m positive basking in its resplendent burn for any extended period of time will horrify and amaze any of you reading.

By virtue of fantastic instrumental performance, a keen ear for songwriting, and an impressively natural sense of how an album ought to flow, Boreal Despair simultaneously oozes terror and sublimity in that special way only the best black metal truly can. Hailing from Tennessee, SkyThala are fairly esoteric, sharing members with experimental music collective Moonlight Cypress Archetypes. The overall shell of Boreal Despair is late-era Emperor through a modernist lens and with the songwriting sensibilities of Dordeduh–in that the band often cuts back to just Stravinsky inspired orchestra with similarly-lengthed miniature epics. For minutes at a time drums relentlessly blast while the guitars make my head spin with their swirling, nonsensical riffs atop sexy bass counterpoint, and, of course, the most unique thing about Boreal Despair is the orchestrations, subtle mixes of trombone, oboe, and bassoon which occasionally burst outward in a startling fashion. This is the band’s maximalism shining through as somehow everything happens at once at points so as to completely overwhelm the senses: It is present in the profound juxtaposition between “high art” and black metal as well as in the contrasts between each swirling riff.

The most impressive part of a work like this is that SkyThala know just as well when to pull back and leave just a layer or two like the strikingly memorable dissonant main riff of “Variegated Stances of Self Mockery,” which is isolated with only those insanely unceasing drums. The riff strips away so much while remaining at such a high level that I’ll do the same and simply say it’s a must-listen-to moment and absolutely bonkers. This is black metal at its most frenetic and unwieldy… until it isn’t as mere minutes later dissonant winds and horns collide in a well-timed respite from the shocking black metal in a total Aquilus or Dordeduh move–but also the symphonies are more ominous than those bands, the section forewarning what’s to come. 

What’s to come is the highlight track “Boreal Phrenological Despair,” which despite featuring an all too familiar solo guitar intro (listen to Ad Nauseam – “Coincidentia Oppositorium” if you need a hint to where I believe it borrows from), bursts at the seams with maximalist blackened goodness à la Imperial Triumphant. The main theme elevates the song and album to a higher plane, though, while it employs an auditory illusion to make the main melody appear to keep ascending in pitch. That, along with more choral synths, feels like approaching heaven from a more distorted angle, and I imagine this is what Elijah Tamu (Panegyrist) has in mind when he speaks of black metal helping to find some divine light through darkness. Genuinely pushing the envelope for what can be done in black metal, the track is a perfect expansion of some of the genre’s ingrained ideologies in my mind. Even the blast beats give rise to a feeling of levity. Oh, and I didn’t even mention the organ at 6:27 which is one of my favorite uses of the instrument since “Close to the Edge” fifty years ago, and then a more muted version of the illusionary riff comes back after our organ intermission, this time with background woodwinds taking the bulk of the melody underneath a completely insane cacophony.

Now I could talk about more individual, heartstopping moments for paragraphs more like the solo of the year contender at 5:15 in “Rotted Wooden Castles,” but I think baptizing yourself in the sound, letting the music really wash over you, while listening will make my excitement more understandable. Instead I’ll end the review by briefly talking about the end of Boreal Despair which actually feels like Wilderun’s “When the Fire and the Rose Were One”: “Yielding Quivers of Revolution” ends the album in an appropriate way, slightly altering expectations while still providing my dissonant fix I’d want from great avant-garde black metal, but the end also brings to light the album’s largest flaw. Often, the sound is utterly bewildering and unique, but occasionally, moments where other acts’ influence take over SkyThala’s own individuality do pop up. I am certainly not accusing them of plagiarism since it seems to be more of a “great minds think alike” type deal, and even the moments SkyThala don’t sound like SkyThala are still godly, but it’s one of the only aspects of Boreal Despair I can knock down at all. Every spin has revealed the album to be more and more perfect, a debut far more impressive than any avant-garde black metal album has a right to be. Go forth and listen to this; you’ll be impressed.

Recommended tracks: Variegated Stances of Self Mockery, Boreal Phrenological Despair, Yielding Quivers of Revolution
You may also like: Ad Nauseam, Dordeduh, Scarcity, Imperial Triumphant, Panegyrist, Krallice
Final verdict: 9/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | YouTube | Facebook | Metal-Archives page

Label: I, Voidhanger – Bandcamp | Website | Facebook

SkyThala is:
– R (bass, guitar, orchestration, vocals)
– S (drums)
– E (keyboards, orchestrations)