Svarti Loghin - Drifting Through the Void

February 22, 2010

Reviewer: Matt

What a piece of garbage.  I signed up to review this album because I heard the title track from their 2008 debut full-length Empty World and thought it was “cool” that they presumably could afford the licensing fee for “Here Comes the Sun,” the main guitar lick of which curiously found its way into an ostensibly black metal song.  I guess I could rant at length about how by even reviewing this album we’re helping to perpetuate a colossal scam on the metal world by even acknowledging the existence of such sophomoric, self-pitying bands that write songs about their girlfriends and the moon and stars like a Twilight soundtrack, but the fact is that this album fails as an indie rock album as well.  Unlike the new Alcest album, which makes at least a passable attempt at memorable songwriting, Drifting Through the Void is a joke that any self-respecting indie kid would laugh right out of the coffeeshop and would certainly not retweet.

Svarti Loghin claim to combine shoegaze, indie rock, and alt-country, but they’re really just imitating bands like Alcest and Lifelover, who themselves are just imitating My Bloody Valentine and Sunny Day Real Estate. Every track here is a few simple chord progressions with a three- or four-note cleanly-picked melody played over top.  Every song sounds pretty much identical, and each song goes absolutely nowhere in their tedious run times.  They shuffle around listlessly and indifferently at languid tempos with melodies so saccharine that I now need a root canal, whiny black metal style vocals trading with horribly flat clean singing (excepting the solid Eddie Vedder impersonation in the title track), and tepid attempts at more aggressive drumming. I can’t think of any reason why anyone would want to listen to this shit, though perhaps as a parade of horribles of this post-black metal trend it’s a valuable teaching tool.  There’s a cover of “Planet Caravan” that is probably the only listenable album on the song, though it sounds like Sabbath channeling Dashboard Confessional. 

It’s rare that I hear an album with absolutely no redeeming value, but this is indeed such an album.  My plea to our readers: there’s no shortage of indie rock bands with creativity and talent if you want to hear happy melodies and softly sung vocal hooks, so please listen to them - those bands with the class to not shamelessly masquerade as non-conformists when in reality they want everyone to sing their songs Kumbaya-style around the campfire - instead of supporting metal record labels’ horribly misguided decisions to sign these kind of bands.

Release Date: April 16, 2010
Label:  A Sad Sadness Song / ATMF Records

TRACK LISTING

1.  Red Sun Sets
2.  Kosmik Tomhet
3.  Odelagd Framtid
4.  Drifting Through The Void
5.  Nighstky Interlude 3
6.  Bury My Heart in These
     Starlit Waters
7.  Planet Caravan
8.  Stargazer

Total playing time:  47:10

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