Anomalie changes shape again.
Three years after his last release, Marrok (all instrument/vocals, ex-Tulsadoom, ex-Selbstentleibung, live for Harakiri for the Sky, Schammasch, Austere…) continues his collaboration with Lukas S. (drums, Détresse, ex-Bifröst) and AOP Records to unveil Riverchild, his fifth album.
The album opens with the calm but disquieting introduction of Mother of Stars, a first composition that gradually lets us enter this ocean of melancholic darkness where clean vocals bewitch us before welcoming screams. Backing vocals’ softness and hypnotic harmonics return, but the track then gives way to An Unforgiving Tide, which takes a groovy mystical turn, incorporating Tibetan guttural vocals before avalanches of blast, creating a few energetic passages that punctuate the composition. The duality between vocals and instrumentals is also found on Perpetual Twilight, but the intensity harmonizes to develop a heavy yet ethereal tone, ending in melancholy before Heart to Beat imposes its haunting march with its sometimes Old School, almost military tones. The sound remains fairly constant until its final, when Awakening suddenly ignites, throwing us into its waves of explosive fury, which only subside to let us breathe and finally drift into Riverchild, the eponymous track, which begins acoustically. Dissonance and alternating vocals take their place to create a steady rhythm, before Among Shadows weave their own web of majestic, at times almost ritualistic sounds, but which also know how to give way to violence for more raw passages. A Cosmic Truth hypnotizes us with its airy leads, but the track becomes more aggressive and darker as the riffs appear, sometimes transforming it into a steady march animated by the transcendent vocals, but the swan song is provided by Thoughts, the shortest and calmest composition, which lets the acoustic guitar, some percussion and Marrok‘s clear voice lull us to sleep until the last moment.
Although rooted in its intense, ethereal Post-Black Metal influences, Anomalie is just as capable of offering us gentle tranquillity as invigorating fury. Each of the band’s albums has its own distinct personality, and Riverchild‘s is filled with a heady melancholy.
90/100
