I beg your pardon, Svartkonst–but it appears you got your corpse paint on my cargo shorts. Over the course of two albums, Rickard Törnqvist–until now the only member of this Swedish outfit–has been concocting and refining his signature blend of Entombed-core Swedeath and Watain’s fierce approach to melodic black metal. 2020’s Black Waves was a revelation and a highlight of that dire year, taking the best of Svartkonst’s influences and boiling away whatever Törnqvist didn’t need. Not since the mad lads over at Reese’s had their mishap with chocolate and peanut butter has a mashup gone so swimmingly. Now Törnqvist is back with a five-man touring lineup in tow, as Svartkonst drops new long player May the Night Fall. Can this young act continue its creative ascent, or has Svartkonst peaked already?
May the Night Fall debuts some refinements to Svartkonst’s attack, but this is basically the same band that snapped our necks back in 2020. Here are eight anthems and two instrumentals that blow in on a blackened wind here, or announce themselves with a blistering death roar there. Things stay reliably savage, and yet infectious choruses offer handholds along the way. So far, so Svartkonst. Tiny tweaks distinguish May the Night Fall from its forebears. The most surprising of these adjustments are the hints of Gothic sadboi scattered throughout the album. Opener “Haunt Me” arrives with a gloomy piano intro. The song itself is a ripper, but if you isolate the lyrics they could accompany a dark track by The Cure or Joy Division. None of this should suggest that Rickard Törnqvist has gone soft–May the Night Fall is a wicked beast indeed. The new record’s best moments may fall just shy of the insane heights reached by Black Waves, but May the Night Fall is a more consistent listen and is at least as good as its predecessor overall. Svartkonst has done it again, delivering a blazing, brisk, and endlessly addictive listen.
May the Night Fall’s forty-three minutes organize themselves into two sections of four songs each, with each section capped off by a short instrumental. There’s not a bad track to be found, but the opening run of “Haunt Me,” “Breath of Satan,” and “Straight to the Grave” stands out. “Breath of Satan,” driven by a relentless air raid siren of a riff, scours away any concern that Svartkonst will take a softer approach here. “Straight to the Grave” hits a sweet spot of unbridled aggression mixed with engaging songwriting that evokes Arizona’s always-underrated Take Over and Destroy. The blackened tremolo riff that carries the six-minute “Endless Dark” shakes up the album’s vibe while maintaining the blistering pace. The back half of the record peaks with the twin assault of “Filth Worship” and “Concrete and Steel.” The former’s chorus urges the listener “FORWARD!! To nowhere, to nothing, to no one.” The sentiment’s bleak, but you’ll want to follow Törnqvist anyway. “Concrete and Steel” is a menacing bit of business, with Törnqvist promising to “reward” the listener with a generous grant of violence, torture, and death.
The instrumentals may be inessential, but they’re better than most such interludes. Svartkonst injects some variety and skill into each. “Spectral Mirror” nearly earns its place on the slab by adding mournful lead guitar lines that recall early Pallbearer. Closer “Crown of Dead Flowers” seems to exist just to bring back the pianos that started May the Night Fall. It’s the album’s only outright misfire, and the band should have just ended the record with the anthemic and furious “May the Night Fall.” These complaints amount to small potatoes, with the instrumentals doing little to slow the momentum of this rampaging beast.
I’ve always believed that Black Waves should have made a bigger impact than it did. Play “Death Magic” or “I Am the Void” for just about any metalhead and you probably created a new Svartkonst fan. Lucky thing for us that Rickard Törnqvist didn’t punch himself out with that massive effort. He throws down again with May the Night Fall, birthing a dark sibling to Black Waves. No one anywhere is doing the blackened business of Beelzebub better than Svartkonst is right now; the best moments of May the Night Fall make it feel like no one could do it better.
Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Trust No One Recordings
Websites: svartkonst666.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/tnorec
Releases Worldwide: September 29, 2023
