Lightlorn – These Nameless Worlds
Lightlorn – These Nameless Worlds
Black Lion Records
Release Date: 28/06/2023
Running Time: 30:46
Review by Wallace Magri
7/10
Hi metalheads, I am back on Ever Metal’s staff after a long hot summer in Brazil, to deliver my impressions of new heavy metal releases – the genre that we all love around here.
To restart my engines, I chose the Sweden-based post-Black Metal band named Lightlorn that are relaunching their very first EP, “These Nameless Worlds”, first released on streaming platforms in 2022. Now with the support of Black Lion Records, this EP is re-released in a physical format, while Lightlorn work on their first album – to be released later this year.
What can I say about a band that performs so-called ‘Cosmic Black Metal?’ The first thing is, I thought that creative genre labels in metal music had come to an end, but here we are listening to this brand new musical style, that sounds something like, if the band allows me, Progressive Black Metal, mixing Baphomet’s genre with peculiar musical styles, sometimes sounding as monotonous as an U2 song (listen to the never-ending ‘Stargazing in the Abyss’ and probably you will get my point), and sometimes adding Melodic Metal/Power Metal into the cauldron where all those musical genres are cooked.
Unfortunately, the press release didn’t include the songs’ lyrics, and it is impossible to understand what multi-instrumentalist Renwar is vociferating during the endless duration of the songs (the EP has 4 songs that takes 30 minutes to deliver us their Cosmic Metal songs). If only I could read the lyrics, I would say something about their existentialist astronomic philosophy approach, as told in the press release – because I really love philosophical lyrics!
In my opinion, Lightlorn failed when trying to bring the pop music passages, along with the atmospheric ‘prog-like’ intersections and happy chords taken from a Melodic/Power Metal pattern. They don’t match the usually fingered atonal melancholic black metal, guided by the infernal drums. Concerning the drum work, it is possible to listen to the blast beats here and there, performed by Keinann, an excellent drummer and programmer, who gives his all when transitioning through melodic metal passages, progressive atmospheres interludes and whatever the music’s melodies are forcing his drums to work with. Wow, that is not an easy job at all!
Has anybody in the room mentioned the word ‘pretentious’? Well yeah, I guess you are right, it is a little. But let’s give Lightnorn another chance and wait for the new album, expecting more cohesive songs than we heard on “These Nameless Words”.
TRACKLISTING:
01. Unmapped Constellations
02. Through the Cold Black Yonder
03. Dilation Sleep
04. Stargazing in the Abyss
LINE-UP:
Renwar – all instruments, vocals and lyrics
Riaan – drums/programming
LINKS:
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