Fans of Phil Elverum, mastermind behind Mount Eerie (as well as the
now-defunct Microphones), probably found it odd when he claimed black
metal as the inspiration for his group’s latest album, the dense,
enthralling and rewarding Wind’s Poem. As the dust settles on
opener “Wind’s Dark Poem,” with pulsating distortion, cacophonous
thumping and wicked, bellowing guitar—while Elverum’s gentle,
hushed voice lightly crawls through the chaos—it is clear that
Elverum’s black metal is a different breed.
Those looking for anything as heavy as the album’s opening salvo
will immediately be surprised by what follows: “Through the Trees,” an
11-minute airy track of gorgeous organ exhales and ephemeral
arraignments. In fact, the album’s metal moments all but disappear
after that initial burst—there are the savage guitar slashes on
“The Hidden Stone” and the dissonant squalls of “The Mouth of Sky” that
remind listeners of the album’s underpinning.
Still, the album’s best moments are its quieter passages. The
baritone guitar reverb and vibrato electronics of “Ancient Questions”
and the Twin Peaks-thieving (and saluting) synthesizer ballad
“Between Two Mysteries” are astounding. Meanwhile, “Lost Wisdom, Pt. 2”
makes the best of both worlds, with its bellicose opening giving way to
buzzing electronic gusts and small percussive armies crashing quietly
in the background.
Sure, there’s an unfortunate digression into noisy excess on the
mercifully brief song “(Something),” but Wind’s Poem succeeds
because of Elverum’s appropriately exercised black-metal inspiration
and complex yet accessible musical structures.
This article appears in Sep 10-16, 2009.
