Saiva - Markerna Bortom

#FOR FANS OF: Folk Metal

Another one-man band from Sweden, Saiva is the product of Andreas Petterson, a once corpse painted black metal warrior who has appeared with numerous underground acts before settling into the more folk influenced periphery since hanging up his screaming face. With Saiva there is as much to be expected as there is in Grift. Saiva's sound is music to thresh wheat to, to stare at trees to, and to hang outlanders from those trees to as much as Grift's music is to sulk, question, contemplate, and commit suicide to.

Throughout Saiva's 'Markerna Bortom' is a general air of ancient and timeless chanting to quiet and toned-back minimalist guitars picking their way around softly rippling cycles. Distant cries can be heard from Grift's Erik Gärdefors in “Där Vindar Vänder” among other collaborations that round out an album enhanced by the contributions of Panopticon's Austin Lunn and Juha Marklund of Tervahäät. These additions surely do embrace that idea of 'solidarity in solitude' through an isolating experience between the shakes of the strings while the imposing ensemble can conjure the anxiety of being stalked by phantom fears behind every tree.

“Varsel I Vildmark” has harmonizing calls that leap with a bark as the guitars wrap around themselves through the dreamlike end of the song, predicating the yelping accents throughout the vocal harmony in “Nordan”. Most distinctive however, is how “Nordmarkens Älvar” and “Där Vindar Vänder” create an endless flowing sound with their calming guitars. While the river calmly bubbles along in “Nordmarkens Älvar”, the flood of a full compliment inundates the second progression in “Där Vindar Vänder” as chanting, a second guitar, and pounding drums submerge stone and shoreline with icy intensity.

The quivering lilting in the guitars makes for a quintessentially black metal offering of twisted harmonies as a second set of strings stands hairs on end and sends shivers down your spine. Even when taken down to its most basic tones and without the raging resonance expected in voluminous reverberations, the tone of this album retains its foreboding atmosphere. This is especially found in the second movement of “Nordan” where the gritty riffing growls behind an ever suffocating wall of imposing treble sounds to create a claustrophobic atmosphere before the wave breaks. Though the aggression of 'Markerna Bortom' is understated and far less apparent than the average screaming black metal band, the mesmerizing atmosphere and steadily growing sound with all its guitar additions, chants, martial drumming, and chest-clenching uproar finds its own delirious place in the mysticism of black metal's disorienting wilderness. (Five_Nails)

(Nordvis Produktion - 2017)
Score: 75

https://saiva.bandcamp.com/album/markerna-bortom