Style: Post-Black (harsh vocals)
Review by: Dylan
Country: Russia
Release date: October 1, 2020
If I talk to you about post-black, who do you think about? Probably the two genre giants Alcest and Deafheaven. These two have either created or majorly popularized the genre, with a blueprint of what the genre ”should” be; Essentially mixing in post-rock with black metal, and (in the case of Alcest) some shoegaze thrown in the mix. What this created was a wall of sound that had a more hopeful melody structure than traditional black metal, with simple emotive interludes that pluck at your heartstrings.
However since then, bands have proven that you can take this genre to either extreme; be it extremely hopeful, metallic post rock (See Unreqvited‘s Mosaic I), or extremely bleak and grim black metal with some post/gaze elements. The latter is what My Lonely Sea is doing with their sophomore album, Havoc.
In case this wasn’t painfully obvious already, this is not an album to put on when you feel like listening to happy music. It’s atmosphere fits the album’s cover art: Very, very dark. With guitars that have a crunch that’s rather comparable to grungier music, and vocals that are heavily distorted, the passages of black metal here are indeed quite intense. Without the existence of the various interludes between heavy passages, I’d say this release flirts more with atmo-black than post. But the interludes exist, and oh my they’re quite a treat. They don’t follow the trope that anything acoustic has to sound like a ”ray of hope”, instead they’re used to further build this grim atmosphere the album is going for, with some great guitar passages that follow the initial melody’s motto.
I’d say every track here follows this formula in one way or the other. On one hand, that’s not too bad because it is indeed, a very pleasant one to listen to. But on the other, at over an hour’s length, it can feel a bit flow-less or repetitive going through this album in one sitting. It seemed like, whatever track I started from would feel like a highlight, and the rest would all blend in together. This could be from my (un)ability to tolerate such grim music for a prolongued amount of time, so take my warning with a grain of salt. I’d reccomend anyone interested in Havoc to check it out in it’s entirety. Either you’ll get multiple new tracks for your playlist, or you’ll end up loving the album as a whole and will make it into your heavy rotation.
Recommended tracks: Soulmates, Sorrow In Me
Recommended for fans of: Hvøsch
Final verdict: 7.5/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | VK | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Label: Independent
My Lonely Sea is:
– Alex Zhilinskiy (vocals, bass)
– Nikita Fotin (guitars)
– Alex Sirotkin (drums)
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