When handed the spiritus of Sunnfjord, Norway-borne trio TRELLDOM nearly two decades beyond their last release the most natural assumption is that they’d serve the project similar iteration given back in 2007, a slight evolutionary statement within the bounds of the original thought foundered in the early 90’s. Yet as we step into this fourth full-length album from the band they’ve accepted no strictures or conditions given, crafting from general guideposts of dark hypnotic obsession while leaving behind the coarse practicum of black metal instrumentation yet retaining the rejection inherent to said core philosophy. This means ‘…of the Shadows…‘ is stylistically unrelated to past works, a personalized avant-garde medium which stretches the boundaries of heavy music into both progressive and abstracted movements which do not entirely escape tuneful and/or atmospheric resound along the way. There may not be anything here for fans looking for 90’s style Norwegian black metal but that doesn’t stop this entry from the band being authentic to its intent and entertaining throughout.

Trelldom formed circa 1992 as the earliest glimpse of vocalist, actor, artist and sommelier Gaahl‘s vision for black metal before he was made more infamous per his inclusion in Gorgoroth from 1998 ’til ~2007. Outside of some obscure zine notice back in the day you won’t find any particularly profound writing on the early history of the band beyond a few terribly writ fan reviews. The way I would characterize the step from their first demo tape (‘Disappearing of the Burning Moon…’, 1994) into the far more wrathful reset of ‘Til Evighet…‘ (1995) is primitive sombre expressivity unto fiery despondency, not too distant from the Bergen-area pagandom in some respects but also not adherent to the perceived “rules” of auld black metal even then. This early release among many classics on the Head Not Found imprint was a considerable leap in authorship but not an unheard-of boon to function as original guitarist Tyrant and Gaahl had evolved from mid-paced blunted hypnotic movements and nigh death metallic growls to a complex whorl of rollicking yet tormented black metal stampede. I particularly love the guitar work on that first album when it reaches its most kinetic snarl (see: “Taake”) to me this was the album to initially define my expectations of the band.

The next two albums from the band were the completion of a general trilogy, one which they were in no specific hurry to complete, that’d fully characterized Trelldom as a black metal band. Under the guidance of then well-experienced and prolific producer/engineer Pytten the band’s second album (‘Til et annet…‘, 1999) coincided with the reveal of Gaahl‘s contribution to the opening of Gorgoroth‘s 1998 album ‘Destroyer‘ which’d gathered more international renown as their first for Nuclear Blast. Often characterized as straight forward, raw, and vehement a closer look at that second album reveals an oaken, folkish side (“Min Död Til Ende”) and of course the haunting vocals from the maestro who’d only just begun revealing his erratic clean vocal style, a ghostly and estranged expression which would become part of his signature. As much as black metal salespeople would like to make the fellow a celebrity for various reasons the artist in him was made most obvious with the performance we find on that album. After leaving his previous band Gaahl would reinvigorate Trelldom in replicating the effect of ‘Til et annet…‘ with ‘Til minne…‘ in 2007, retaining most of that same lineup and producer. While their rhythm section had evolved the idea quite a bit and the droning nature of the rhythm guitar work was appropriate in a raw Voivod-esque way the vocals were not as directive, far more set in an anti-social detached sense of narration which emphasized variety.

Contextualizing ‘Til minne…‘ in the same space as as the first two Trelldom albums wasn’t difficult, bounding folken step interrupted steady cyclonic furor and it’d all fit the bill, it’d been nearly a decade and it was obvious that the album meant to be venomous. So, the challenge today is understanding the spirit that carries on beyond that point for the seventeen years it took to manage ‘…by the Shadows‘ today and I have to admit I am stumped. The natural tendency would be to assume that one could look to Gaahl’s Wyrd as a baseline for what this fourth album might’ve set its standards upon but this only holds up in terms of providing a dynamically set production value. With some closer study of the rhythms written by bassist (now guitarist) Stian Kårstad (Nidingr) on the previous album and accounting for the time between things begin to fall into place as this eclectic, dark avant-garde metal album emerges from the generative black swamp into a sometimes dissonant oft progressive muse with great sense for capturing more than the distemper available to Gaahl‘s vocal/lyrical range.

What is black metal today? By an increasing majority it is a product beset by forced nostalgia from folks too young to have felt much more for the actual culture than a fear of missing out on the real thing. The suggestion, or perhaps the “spin”, here is that ‘…by the Shadows..‘ reinforces stepping out of line rather than forever matching one’s auld shadow self. In this way I believe they have done well to make a lot of current black metal look childish, self-obsessed by nature at least from an artistic perspective. And I’m not implying that avant-garde jazz fusion brimmed compositions are unheard of in the realm of black metal but I will say that the inclusion of saxophone player Kjetil Møster does add something particularly special to these surreal, difficult to predict pieces as the full listen squares up in mind. Trelldom deliver a haunting dream with this medium, a selection of songs which never struck me as a nightmare so much as a piece of true surrealism still conscious of black metal atmosphere but untethered to it. There are many examples of this to cite along the way here but by the time you’ve sunken into the humming harmonious gloom of “Between the World” this will all either arrive as a (mostly) complete thought, or ring within reductive consciousness as an oddity for the sake of subverting expectation.

“The Voice of What Whispers” is successfully compelling as an opener amidst its pick-scraping and synth modulated intro the broken chords and one foot in, one foot out step of the main riff create tension which is its own type of aggression a la certain Virus releases, an escalator rather than a rousing or wrathful ‘heavy metal’ opening moment. From there “Exit Existence” is where I’d found the first bit of connection made with ‘…by the Shadows…‘, as I’d suggested the saxophone work was novel to start (think John Zorn influenced metal) but there on the main single it is implemented down the pathway cut by the vocal cadence and the melodic black guitar rub that follows its first verse. Again, you might think Gaahl’s Wyrd went this far outside of the box but anyone intimately familiar with that work will quickly realize this is an entirely different thing and, of course relating it to Trelldom is perhaps even more difficult in the moment. Here they’d made a case for a compelling enough progressive blackened metal record with that song alone, the glowing smooth timbre of Gaahl‘s voice being a major standout.

Need more tenor saxophone, even a bit of clarinet? Møster has you covered as we step through the middle of the album (“Return the Distance”) and relish in the unreal, dreadful atmosphere of chaotic yet not fully bleak energy running through the full listen. This point of a passage from Side A to Side B from the sublimely surreal “Between the World” and the revelatory “I Drink out of My Head” would be the major highlight of the full listen on my part but I think about nine minutes of instrumental fuss was too much for this record at just ~41 minutes as I felt “Return the Distance” could’ve been fused with its follow-up for the sake of impact. Otherwise “I Drink Out of My Head” was the first song on this album that’d had me wondering if Kårstad is a bit of a Swans fan, moreso based on its second half, and this thought lingered in mind as “Hiding Invisible” puts us through the grinder a bit more afterward. There is no doubt the spirit and the rhythm of black metal is to be found here but it is not necessarily focal point for the duration of the ride and doesn’t act as adjudicator, and instead Trelldom use that extremity to convey peaks of activity or darker haunting pieces.

The final two songs on this album are both some of the most compelling points of ugly sonic lustre and some of the least tuneful moments otherwise, particularly the daimonian jam through “Hiding Invisible” which feeds off of creature noise and droning, shambling progressions. Thankfully the kraut-jazz kick of the closer/title track injects some final interest into their tainted sea of noise. While this album isn’t ultimately built around song and repetition as much as I’d have wanted in terms of lasting connection the arte put into their avant-garde sense of movement and nauseating, bleak affect of most songs help to bolster the final experience into a memorable act.

While Trelldom offer some dark fixation in those heavily experiential instrumental movements the thought isn’t always substantial when linked together as a whole where vast stretches of jammed, unfettered movement meet up with more direct performance, as I was personally looking for more connective moments in the overall ratio. This didn’t stop the album from retaining some appreciable value as an experience which’d been hard to initially predict in its motions but ultimately enjoyable as a known font of surreal, ominous effect. Any great album which aims for the abstract and unreal which presents reasonable passage between such discomfort and comfort should be approachable for the moderne dark music ear, though the strict 90’s black metal crowd may not have grown in scope of interest as much as the artist has diverged in their pathos. I’d found this album largely brilliant, never drab but occasionally over-invested in atmosphere rather than statement though most of the extended instrumental movements had some purpose. As a listener I did eventually begin paring my experience down to the pieces centered around vocal performances. A moderately high recommendation.

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