Review: Fall of Leviathan – In Waves

Style: post-metal, post-rock (instrumental)
Recommended for fans of: We Lost the Sea, Lost in Kiev, Cult of Luna, If These Trees Could Talk
Country: Switzerland
Release date: 1 March, 2024

Finally, a proper post-metal album! Swiss post-rock and/or -metal outfit Fall of Leviathan threaten us all with a good time featuring “melodies that reflect the calmness and vastness of the sea before submerging into the depths of the ocean” (from their press blurb for the album), and their debut In Waves delivers on that evocative promise. Showcasing tumult alongside tranquility, this array of marine-themed tracks capably balances the contrasting moods and builds enticing transitions from one to the other and back again. What the album achieves in imagery, though, it lacks in consistency: while the contrasts help underscore the album’s mood and theme, they also get in the way of fully developing any one musical idea beyond the base concept of “ocean.”

Although lyricless, In Waves includes audio samples in the opening and closing tracks to deepen the album’s themes and make them more explicit than instrumentals alone could. The first of these perfectly captures the desolate spirit of empty ocean that Fall of Leviathan have set out to depict, quoting from Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea as “Nantucket” enters a lull at about its two-thirds mark. Describing “prisms in the deep dark water” and “the strange undulation of the calm,” this passage sets the scene for the dual depictions of beauty that the music itself supports—serenity above, harsh unknowns below. This portrait develops further during “Red Bay,” where the bass part’s long, rising notes seem at times to mimic whale song or the low, slow call of some other benthic creature. Further enhanced by the track’s adherence to a quieter tone, both the overall impression of the music and the clever sound effects help suggest the presence of deep, dark mysteries.

Most tracks on In Waves begin with softer, quieter moments before they dive into the darker abysses of post-metal, achieving a similar effect (though certainly to a lesser extent) to how The Ocean’s like-themed concept album Pelagial builds a dual metaphor for the deep layers of the ocean and the depths of a mental health crisis as the music journeys deeper into intense and distorted sounds. The title track in particular extends that formula, swelling up and down or shifting back and forth between the two styles like a wave rather than following a strict progression of light to heavy. On a technical level, Fall of Leviathan prove themselves equally capable of both the light post-rock side and the heavy, distorted post-metal side. However, each song from In Waves feels torn between its more ambient opening atmospheres and the heavier fathoms into which it sinks. This may be more a matter of personal preference, but in terms of their composition I find that the subtlety of the lighter moments feels a bit more effective than the crushing heavy moods, and although the tonal transitions add variety, they also rob those brighter moments of the chance to expand and develop which the long track runtimes would otherwise afford.

The longest songs (though indeed most of them are long) carry the most impact as they stretch out that development from soft to heavy and light to dark, enhancing the feeling of peeking beneath the waves and glimpsing their thalassic turmoil. That said, with the longest track “Pacific,” instead I get a feeling of aimlessness, some sense that the music’s forward development has been held up by a lack of endpoint. The individual moments come across well as the track’s aesthetic shifts like dappled sunlight shining down through tumultuous waves, but the final impression largely sneaks past unnoticed like the tide rising and falling. Although “Pacific” is probably the most guilty of this, I notice it more and more with the rest of the album the more I listen to it. I can pause to appreciate the legitimately pleasant, powerful, or otherwise evocative musical snapshots as they arise, but when each track comes to a close, I don’t feel as if I’ve experienced something fully complete and actualized.

There be some monsters lurking beneath the album’s foamy surface, and In Waves constructs a compelling contrast between the dual scenes of above and below, light and dark, airy and claustrophobic. Although this duality strengthens the impact and the feelings invoked by these scenes’ instrumental imagery, it also at times makes the aesthetics feel inconsistent and unsupported. The compositional and performative range on display deserves acclaim, but in another sense I think I would have preferred a more focused project with a clearer primary goal in terms of being either heavy or soft. Still, Fall of Leviathan have done a bang-up job crafting these sonic oceanscapes, filled with serene beauty backed up by the slow terror of the unknown. Even if flawed, it’s a worthy post-metal outing and a genuine bit of artistry.

Recommended tracks: Nantucket, In Waves, Red Bay
You may also like: Shy, Low, Tacoma Narrows Bridge Disaster, Molecules to Minds, jeffk
Final verdict: 6/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram
Label: Vitruve Records – Website | Facebook

Fall of Leviathan is:
– Emma Richon (drums)
– David Seuret (bass)
– Loïc Fleury (synths, “noise”)
– Régis Mérillat (guitars)
– Marc Wattenhofer (guitars)