Rating: 8.0

Country: USA

Release Date: 2006

Record Label: Self Released

Track list:
1. Prelude: Beyond Majestic Mountains
2. Atrocities of Mankind
3. Entities of Putrid Cognizance
4. The Misanthrope
5. Dominion
6. With Luciferian Pride
7. For What Once Was...
8. Outro: Into the Black of Night

Total playing time 34:14

Contact: Bothildir

Bothildir - For What Once Was...

Ardroth - Everything

If you stopped me on the street and asked me what's hurting black metal the most nowadays, how do you think I would respond? If you're thinking awkward silence, you're correct, but the other answer is Myspace. It's a plague. Actually, "plague" is perhaps not the best analogy; plagues resulted in some of the finest art of the middle ages. If they had Myspace back then, they'd be too busy sending eachother "thanxeth 4 da addeth" and inflating their ye olde friend lists. Perhaps a better analogy is a marauding horde of rapists and killers. You've never seen a brooding piece of art based on that, because all the survivors did was cry and throw shit at each other until they died from gangrene or something, which I think encapsulates the incestuously derivative Myspace black metal scene perfectly: a bunch of guys crying and throwing their shit at each other. All that aside, the internet does have the capability to be used as a vehicle for genuinely good music. It's rare, but when it happens, it's like a Christmas miracle -- except it doesn't only happen to white children on televised holiday specials.

Bothildir is such a case, playing a regal brand of symphonic black metal that mastermind Ardroth likes to describe with the German word gesamtkunstwerk, which basically means art that draws from a myriad of influences -- an apt description. When the keyboards push past the foreground and actually interact with the music, Bothildir starts to remind me much more of Wyrd and Taake, and even Beethoven and Bach than the easiest symphonic black metal reference point, Emperor. Also dipping into Agalloch territory with introspective, folky acoustic bits that don't overstay their welcome, For What Once Was displays a sense of balance seldom found in underground music. The synth generally emulates horns, strings and choral chants, existing simply to accentuate the riffs with a sense of baroque grandiosity. I was never a fan of keyboards parroting actual instruments, but they're chromatic and epic enough here that I can't really complain. Despite the keyboard and acoustic guitar presence, the mighty riff is not neglected. The album's crawling with crippling breakdowns (they work, honestly. 2:35 to 3:10 in "Entities of Putrid Cognizance" will kick your ass.) and dynamic stylistic shifts. For instance, the viral opening riff of the song "With Luciferian Pride" blurs the line between black metal and a fist-pumping, thrashy crossover punk ethic, until buried piano lines begin shimmering through a gauntlet of staccato power chords, while the title track's truly dramatic crescendo can crawl in your head and call you to the pines for days.

Bothildir's most notable flaw lies in the aesthetic. Ardroth dabbles in too many ubiquitous black metal clichés, with rather generic lyrics about nature, misanthropy, dismal winds and et al., riddled with contrived use of words like "giveth" and "hath." I'm basing this judgement off the one song of which the lyrics are reproduced on the internet, but since Ardroth's into stuff like PETA (ugh), it's probably better for the score that I don't know the rest of the album's lyrics. Similarly cheesy is how the song "Dominion" begins with a gravelly, villainous proclamation of "disgusting little creatures... Soon, all of you will feel my hate, and suffer as I suffer." I almost expected that to be followed up with a sample of "I'll get you next time, Gadget... Next time!" Even though I just alienated half my readers with that reference, I must get back on track. The album is performed commendably, with untriggered (yes!) caveman drums that blast at the appropriate moments, and Ardroth's high-pitched Ihsahn-esque rasp, occasionally belting out with piercing falsetto screams. The production's warm and brittle, its bittersweet guitar tone recalling the aura of Ulver's Nattens Madrigal.

So right, that's all great, but what separates For What Once Was from that rest of the pack is the fact Bothildir refuses to simply lean on superficially pleasant keyboard passages, a temptation that leads the majority of symphonic black metal acts into a realm of emotional shallowness and pop mediocrity. For What Once Was is rife with exotic flourishes such as the whining melodic minor lead employed in the song "Dominion", eventually recurring in tremolo form before spiralling into an anarchistic solo over a propulsive tribal pound. Ardroth's clearly not a one-trick pony with those unorthodox scales, something of which even "legendary" black metal bands were guilty.

For What Once Was is a melting pot of ideas and richly eclectic compositions struggling to break free from the restraints of limited resources. Something tells me this guy should be writing a symphony instead of dabbing in black metal. If you enjoy sweeping metallic neoromanticism, purchase immediately. Ad majorem silvam gloriam.

November 9th, 2007