The wait for Afsky‘s fourth album is finally over.
Entitled Fællesskab (“community” in Danish), it celebrates the signing of the band led by Ole Pedersen Luk (vocals/all instruments, Heltekvad, ex-Solbrud) to Eisenwald.
Velkommen til livet begins with what sounds like a nursery rhyme, but the sound quickly transforms into something disturbing, then becomes the ethereal soaring Black Metal we know, complemented by melancholic leads and terrifying human screams. The sound is icy, biting, and uncompromising, but it calms down at times with the appearance of choirs to complement the hypnotic harmonics, and without us noticing, the song gives way to Den der ingenting ved tvivler aldrig, which immediately starts and carries us away in its flood of fury at full speed. The riffs calm down, then flare up again with a plaintive moan, quickly replaced by Ole‘s roars, which fit perfectly with the visceral Old School approach, even during the slower and more majestic passages, before moving on to Natmaskinen, which revives the plaintive cries and brings us an even more oppressive dimension. The contrast between the different elements is striking, reinforced by the emerging DSBM influences and the refined break that separates the first wave from the second, slightly more aggressive one, which eventually leads Arveskam to follow suit, returning to a very direct style where blast beats lead the charge. The track offers rather haunting and sometimes even almost cheerful melodies, but its foundation remains forged in darkness, as evidenced by the long, shrill scream just before the final soaring section, which allows us to catch our breath before Flaggelanternes sang plunges us back into darkness with its funeral sounds and overwhelms us with its oppressive heaviness. Fortunately, the musician allows us to regain our composure with a soaring but still painful break before resuming his lament with increased velocity, followed by a gentle melody that leads into Svanesang, which slowly emerges from the waves to unleash its own tortured storm, making this long final composition a veritable journey through the elements with a deep aggression, then calm eventually returns once more, turning the last moments of our journey into a time of mental wandering.
Each Afsky album is a true dark epic that confronts us with raging waves of virulent riffs that nevertheless retain their melancholy rooted deep within them. The project continues to improve, and Fællesskab will proudly take its place at the top of the 2025 crop.
95/100