Wandering the Dreamer’s fields.

Wandering the Dreamer’s fields.
Igneous, ash sodden black metal.
Grab your space suits and prepare your cryo-dried coffee.
Be it the soaring melodies grounded by gravelly rasps or the wind-whipped onslaughts of steel crushing bone, Amon Amarth port us to the biting, primitive landscapes of yore and imbue in us a keen sense of valiance and wanderlust.
The murky and washy texture of the music, the clean interludes, and the dismal tropospheric layering of blast beats and vocals competing for the title of the least clear sound in the mix lend to this positive and generally empowering aura Strävan exudes.
A despondent expanse made verdant by its lush, transfixing melodies; a seamless wayfaring, Jord och aska harbors an elegant blissfulness sodden in melancholy.
This album is just filled with so many great moments and while the writing manages to respect the time-honoured tradition of Candlemass’s well-known sound, the band really brings something new to the table with this release.
The unbridled melancholy pouring from each individual note swirls together to forge a blizzard of biting anguish, though amidst the relentless gales, moments of sunlight manage to break through.
In episode twenty-six, we wander across the ancient, frost-bitten crags sculpted on Gaetir The Mountainkeeper’s Fornjörð. We stagger through the melodic funeral doom death march of VANHA’s Melancholia and on Andromida’s More Than Human, we soar atop its illustrious, cinematic djent compositions.
In episode twenty-five, we get ensnared within the oozing tech-death miasma of Replicant’s Negative Life. We trek across the majestic medieval expanses conjured on Isegrimm’s Der Herr Von Verona and we suffocate in the pestilent blackened death metal tomb of Mylingar’s Döda Drömmar.