Three absolute must haves in their genres, even if the genre can be hard to define at times.
Borknagar - Fall
Borknagar celebrate 30 years of existence this year. I am not that long on board as only in 2016 I bought Winter Thrice and saw their tour. Other bands by members like Arcturus and Cronian I do follow over two decades already. Strange as Borknagar is my favorite of them all Metal Archives states they play Progressive Viking Folk Black Metal and I guess that is the only way to describe them.You do get a bit of all those styles and often in one song already. Just listen to opener Summits if you want to get an idea of it all. Over the last albums the band has become more accessible and I like that. For me Fall perfectly follows on Winter Thrice and True North. Beautiful atmospheric moody with lyrics I can relate to as Northerner "We won't bend our necks to any god". That's the spirit end of year list material yet again.
North Sea Echoes - Really Good Terrible Things
When Jim Matheos and Ray Alder announced thii new project I got more than a bit excited. Fates Warning is over on the releasing front, but the range of newand very good music since by both gentlemen is endless. The first songs that were released gave a good indication on what to expect. The music not all that far from Jim Matheos' other project Tuesday the Sky with Ray Alder singing dark and low over the music. So anyone expecting an album in the vein of Fates Warning shall be disappointed. I do own both Tuesday the Sky albums and play them occassionally when times ask for calm moody music. Here we get the best voice in current metal over this calm music and yes we get a winner. This won't be the album of the year, for being too calm and lacking power and variation. Yet it might be the album I shall play most this year as Josie already twice commented "this is nice" when I played it without headphones, so when waking up slowly it shall be played again. Pity the CD does not have lyrics, which I consider added value for diving into an album.
Sgàile - Traverse the Bealach
Sgàile is a solo project by Tony Dunn. This album is according to bandcamp about teh following: The story of Traverse the Bealach is that of a nomadic traveller in post-apocalyptic Scotland, trying to figure out his fate and facing the elements while travelling north, battling inner demons along the way. That is a handful, but believe me it does result in already for sure one of the most beautiful albums of 2024. The songs are all long (around 10 minutes) apart from short instrumental Introspect. You really do get the felling of long hikes passed over and post metal lurks around the corner. With progmetal also in the blend what I do like a lot is that at times other bands would have used harsh vocals, where Sgàile sticks to (good) clean vocals throughout the full journey. The album opens with five minutes instrumental until psalms to Shroud at the Void opens with the lines "I'm not a storyteller, but I'll tell you this tale." What a story follows. The album has a theme of interesting opening lines for all songs, but my favorite is Lamentations of the Lochan:"I'm spitting curses at the Sky, It might well make matters worse". Sheer poetry. Well the music is as beautiful and I can't scream loud enough go and check this album out. Apparently his second one, so I must chase for the debut album still. Tony Dunn also played bass on Cnoc an Tursa's The Forty Five. Never heard of, but sounding interesting too.
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