Peordh
Glaring From Spacious Woods And Mountains Of Eternal Frost
6.1
I don’t get to pay as much attention to the black metal scene as I’d like, but when I come across a talented one-man black metal band, it gets me all worked up. An excellent black metal disc will have me donning corpsepaint and metal-studded leather attire, and subsequently scurrying out to any nearby woods so that I may make pained grimaces at the area’s wildlife. When I discovered Peordh was not only a one-man black metal band, but also from my home state of Virginia, I snatched up the wonderfully named Glaring From Spacious Woods and Mountains of Eternal Frost and made my way to the local park. Uh… I meant, of course, the local inhospitable, dark forests bordering frozen tundras populated only by ravenous wolves with souls of pure malice.
As the short, ambient opening track, “Acenning,” and the cover of the album might indicate, Peordh plays black metal of the droning, atmospheric, nature-centric variety, rather than the blistering, hateful kind. The second track, “I Freely Roam,” introduces the actual black metal, which is slow and simple, aiming to create a subtle emotional plain with bare bones components. Right from the outset, Peordh establishes a good atmosphere through the whispered vocals and melodic interplay of the simplistic guitars and keyboards. The atmosphere is unobtrusive, yet pervasive, carrying the listener effortlessly from the opening track to the end of “The Cleansing Rains” forty-five minutes later. An appreciation for the album’s slow, winding mood is required here, but if you have that, the first five songs have a bit to offer. “Winds That Never Fail” and “An Unbroken Trust,” in particular, have some halfway memorable moments, through the ebb and flow of the guitar melodies, a momentary string section, and, compared to the rest of the album, slight aggression.
Unfortunately, though the album is almost an hour and fifteen minutes long, “The Cleansing Rains” is where it truly ends. “An Image of Truth” is a needless seventeen minutes long, especially considering that the entirety of its musical contribution to the album is three notes played on a keyboard repeated ad nauseum. “Carried in Wakeless Flight” at least has some variation and semblance of musical construction, but it is still the same kind of boring, guitarless ambience. Should the idea of a fair portion of a rather long disc being total crap offend you, run like hell, because “An Image of Truth” is going to shit all over your day.
Peordh certainly doesn't incite me to scowl at woodland creatures, but it does put forward a moderately enjoyable forty-five minutes, even if the rest of the disc sucks. I suppose the greatest indicator of Peordh’s quality would be ambivalence. Even after numerous listens, my opinion on the album can be encapsulated in a single shrug. It has all of the inherent positive qualities that not being bad album carries, but it never really steps beyond that. If you’re intrigued by the idea of a Wolves in the Throne Room or Drudkh with most of the complexity and depth stripped away, yet with the atmospheric quality still intact, Glaring From Spacious Woods and Mountains of Eternal Frost will be a decent, if still largely forgettable, listen.
