A hewn hazel branch draped with equine headmeat, spine and blood dripping within the rune-cut curse down its pole is one of countless cast from within the prolific solitude-set realm of Bergen, Norway-based black metal act TAAKE who bring their signature menace and malaise in that order to this ninth full-length album. The second work released within a new era of raw atmospheric, unfettered vision ‘En Skog Av Nidstang‘ channels the artist with the least amount pretense possible as its four chapters flow from clangorous bravado into intimate farrago. The naked, wide-open vision of this work reads as characteristic musing sans any performative desperation assigned, thoughts left to run wild and echo resoundingly wherever they reach.

Taake has been the main venous outlet for musician Hoest since the early 90’s where the major collaborative force of their awakening and characterization took place between 1995-2005, including three celebrated full-lengths of distinctly Norwegian black metal. I’d detailed the long history of the band in review of their eighth LP (‘Et Hav Av Avstand‘, 2023) and there you’ll find deeper context but I’ll generally suggest ‘Hordalands doedskvad‘ (2005) as one of my all-time favorite black metal records per its distinctive guitar work, ambitious compositional hand and some of the most expressive individual work to come from the Norwegian black metal mindshare. Over time the fellowe’s tendency has been toward escalating isolation, commune with the self for the sake of independence among other boons afforded the solitary and this has allowed his creative works in this band to go where they please. Within the context of strong Norwegian identity his work has notably explored elements of folk, rock and beyond within a storied but wholly consistent discography.

Among the ramping events that’d been catalyst for change over the years the pandemic probably didn’t have such a negative effect on Hoest‘s work, I’d say the opposite if anything as he’d reached a brilliant new crest per the aforementioned eighth album, offering wisened conversational strands of an abstract story told in four extended chapters. In review I’d described Taake‘s efforts on ‘Et Hav av Avstand‘ as built from “progressive rock-sized chunks of muse” guided unto a “self-liberated, unhindered” experience with the mood of the album bearing its own dark, venomous cloud. Today this follow-up album seems to have been borne from similarly focused (or, possibly the same) sessions while yielding entirely different tonality, something potentially less sombre and more teeth-bearing, serious in the curses it’d cast outward.

‘En Skog av Nidstang‘ follows the same four-song, two on each side structure of the prior album while shortening their lengths, offering no less of a long-legged trek through each immersive feat while taking on a less forlorn more bacchic exploration of its rhythms. Though each of these four pieces have their hastened and/or aggressive movements, excepting the saunter of “Engler”, the blend of cold atmospheric clime and Taake‘s signature twanging riff voicing is presented without brutality of pace. This and an even more stripped back production value than prior means this ninth album from Hoest distinctly calls to mind the clangor and adventure of the band’s third album per its raw guitar tones and longer-held landscape gazing fixation.

Opener “Einstoeingen og Eg” is the warm return, the familiar place which hangs in mind as Taake is visualized in signature and tonal reap, a jangling riff and throat-ripping howl set upon wriggling trills and bends the guitarist is known for. The first four or so minutes of the piece fly past in introduction, not exactly exploding into scene but wrecking the view of a sunny tree line with its cloudy grey emergence. Here we do not get an empty scene but a starkness beyond expectation with a razor-ringing guitar tone split between two main rhythm guitar voicings, a stinging lead for harmony and an openly spaced rhythm section, the bass guitar centralized as the kit and the rest ringing aloud. There is a hollow, ear piercing carry to Bjørnar Nilsen‘s capture/mix and Øystein Brun‘s mastering doesn’t shy from the shining, crystalline accost of it all… though I will say that the total effect could be heard from a hundred feet away even at modest volume on closed-back monitors. The sound of ‘En Skog av Nidstang‘ absolutely pierces the skull even within its most restfully slung atmospheric moment.

Side A generally carries the load in terms of riffcraft as ‘En Skog av Nidstang‘ builds along similar guidelines as the previous album though I believe this time around each song features some manner of sampled speech or spoken part. Since I’ve very limited grasp of the Norwegian language (some are in English) the impact of these folded-in interjections is lost on me beyond tone. Beyond the bounding groove which develops within the first several minutes of “Et Dyr tok min Hud” the use of sampled speech isn’t much more than a transitional hinge, not so out of the ordinary movement for Taake but also not exactly reaching for the banjo or Jew’s harp as a point of surprise. There seems to be a non-conventional instrument used in the song (~5:57 minute mark) but it avoids interrupting the flow and feeling of the song, rather adds to it as an additional component of the guitar solo nearby its conclusion. The converging, overlapping guitar layers at the end of the piece became one of my favorite details on the full listen over time.

What is most real and unreal with regard to Taake‘s ever-evolving sound is emphasized throughout ‘En Skog av Nidstang‘ but its greatest points of exploration arguably lie over on Side B. The aforementioned “Engler” bears two of its own quasi chapters, the steady bounding stroll through its first ~four and a half minutes is Hoest at his most atmoblack Thin Lizzy-esque mutation, purporting a busied and restless piece ’til the second half grinds between a heavier black n’ roll groove and its clash with more remiss expression. The conflict illustrated within “Engler” is a pretty natural verve for the band but notably strikes as more intimate, secluded than the forlorn mountaintop currency of ‘Et Hav av Avstand‘, a thought which carries over to similarly troubled but far more bombastic nods within closer “Av Guds ville Naade”.

The nature of Taake is most nakedly offered within the course of ‘En Skog av Nidstang‘ per the adaptation forced upon the artist by solitudinous thought, a no less intuited craft emerges yet the artist notably wields a level of focus which is least-yet broken by the strictures of traditional form and technology. In this sense there is a quaint sort of loneliness which follows Hoest‘s efforts here, an unbothered solemnity which hangs betwixt dagger-cut strikes of riff and dead-eyed accost. What one might feel is missing in terms of tightly wound, banging loud neo-black metal bravado is traded for an intimacy with the process and performance at hand. This makes for a brilliantly short distance between rugged black metal wirklichkeit in process and the artist’s own despondent detangling of it in the moment. A high recommendation.

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