Up through the blood-sogged loam and festering beneath the old mill an ancient sinistral being has now lured and made contact with a fitting vessel for its malign soul to desecrate. A second crucifix-clutching chapter flows from mouth to mouth, a wash of putrid will-flaying horror in tragic depiction of our protagonist succumbing to corruption by possession. As this folk-horror tome devoted to lingering shadows and abandoned haunts plods along the characterization available to Malmö, Sweden-based doom metal quartet MALSTEN finds greater clarity, their brand of slow-burning and nuclear hot heft now defines itself with additionally pristine production values and warmed-over psychedelic haze adding to the dark and terror stricken narrative achieved on this sophomore full-length album. ‘The Haunting of Silvåkra Mill – Rites of Passage‘ sustains the four act approach, each a columnar reveal in the slow burning plot, of their debut album but this time around we find lush and varietal realization of their narrative thanks to deeper layered songcraft, more bells and whistles, and all of it dressing up surrealistic sermons describing the damnation of the tempted.

Malsten formed as a quartet circa 2018 for the sake of shared interest in doom metal and with the idea of creating concept albums centered around their own folk horror themes. In creating their own lore for their first album album (‘The Haunting of Silvåkra Mill‘, 2020) they’d envisioned a rural village (Silvåkra, an actual place) and a vicar protagonist who’d been keen enough to sense the trouble at the old mill. Though the concept and horror inspired narrative developed on that first album had me thinking of a band like Anguish to start the style which Malsten have lead with on both of their LPs thus far has a couple of interesting facets beyond the norm as they blend psychedelic doom metal with traditional doom metal old and new. We can first look to the psych’d hi-fi waft of a band like (earlier) Monolord per the strikingly hot live-wired guitar tone of that first album and its punishing low end hits while also considering the slow and heaving tendencies of a la Finnish doom metal of the 2000’s but with a cleaner, clearer vocal style. A storyteller’s verve in patient cadence, wherein the actual vocal timbre is more laid back has thus far been a big part of defining Malsten‘s sound comparable to the distressed side of a band like Cross Vault (or even the first Warning album) which does a fine job of conveying a despondent, haunting feeling. They’d not gone full psychedelic doom but there was a bit of a fuzz layer to their work, they’d not gone full traditional doom either as the droning-slow riffcraft of the band is presented in glistening high fidelity in every case thus far.

Becoming the thing that they’d feared… — Although ‘The Haunting of Silvåkra Mill – Rites of Passage‘ is a direct continuation of the previous album’s storyline and largely recreates the brilliant and booming sound design of that experience they’ve done well to bring in extra layers of depth to the production per folk instrumentation, different guitar tones, and an ease upon the growling distortion applied to the bass on the first album. This helps to edge the first impression away from the stonier side of things (the Sleep-adjacent legacies, for example) just yet and instead balances their frothing-at-the-mouth rhythm guitar tones and sonic excesses with sombre, serious-faced vocal performances which don’t allow so much as as single jaunty riff to carry us through this horrified descent. The solemnity inherent to this second chapter is most often solidified by way of subtle keyboards/synth which does well to marry itself with the guitar compositions on a few songs (“Larum”), this provides an additionally haunting, cathedralesque touch which differentiates from the first chapter in at least one direct way.

Vocalist Manne is otherwise one of if not the most crucial instruments in fashioning something new of this second chapter beyond the additional depth available to the production values and arrangements, reprising the solemn tone of their debut to start and gradually finding a more listless and disassociated tone as the second half commences. Increased use of vibrato to emphasize the tail end of each line, such as heard on “Terra Inferna”, recalls some of the better moments from Isole in recent years while the song itself acts as the peak of the almost stoney but still melodramatic feeling threaded through ‘The Haunting of Silvåkra Mill – Rites of Passage‘. Adding to this sensation and further documenting the vocalist’s range are two interstitial pieces, “Intercession” and “Ceremony” which end the scene depicted by the first half and provide a preamble for the grand finale of “Laurenti Berth” respectively. Within that final ~11 minute piece the vocals no longer have the traditional doom metal doubled effect, rather than carrying a possessed delirium they take on a more resigned lamentation in alternation with spoken verses. While I’d appreciated this variety it’d been a somewhat confusing tonal shift as the album closed, a transformation that appeared to have occurred in the midst of the albums duration.

Beyond the cover painting from drummer Stefan Winroth, does well to convey the horror of the situation, the first impression made by ‘The Haunting of Silvåkra Mill – Rites of Passage‘ is likely to appeal to anyone who has been following traditional doom metal beyond its reprisal in the early 2000’s per their lumbering hypnotic arrangements and enormous sound, thickened by fuzz and generally avoidant of any directly bluesy or 70’s rock inspired movement. In this sense their admixture of classic and modern elements leans toward today’s sonic exaggerations and appears moreso interested in the psychedelic doom metal side of things than throwbacks to classics-era traits. This approach is not far outside the realm of many Swedish doom metal bands of today but this soon evolves and Point B is decidedly different than where we begin with Point A, so to speak. The change of vocal timbre throughout the album, which does well to show some variety of mood/expression, avoids direct iteration upon their modus on Malsten‘s debut when taking in the full experience. While I wouldn’t consider these changes drastic improvements beyond the experience of that previous album it does make four years worth of work apparent when taking a closer look at the details. I’d appreciated the approachable yet haunted atmosphere of the album and the strength of the production values up front and this’d ultimately been what carried me well beyond the requisite handful of listens. A moderately high recommendation.

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