The Black Laments Symphonie

Imagine this...

The rain. The smell of rain exploding into vapours in a dense forest. A forest that serves as a final resting ground for the dearly departed. You come here often. You walk amongst those tombstones, you let the rain crash upon your face as it feebly tries to clean you of your sins. There is a darkness not only in yourself, but in this place. You have come upon one such stone, covered by ancient vines, with dead black roses strewn before it in pitiful penance. She was yours. You were hers. The whip marks upon her body declares it. The streaks clawed into your back serves as eternal evidence of the love that was yours and hers. Now she is gone. And you walk the forest alone. The forest...

Behold the romance and melancholy of the underrated Eikenskaden.

Eikenskaden was, even if only a few people knew it, something special during their short run as a band. This one man black metal project, led by the late Stefan Kozak, was black metal that refused to give in to many of the pitfalls of songwriting within that genre and found a nice niche for itself. Even though Kozak hailed from France, a country not really known for it's metal music, and the project's classically-infused brand of extreme metal was neither epic or symphonic nor shred-y and technical, Eikenskaden was still able to present a wholly unique style that has gone unmatched within the annals of depressive black metal. With only four full-length albums to their name, their creator now deceased, and their discography left buried beneath the menagerie of DSBM bands sprouting up left and right around the world, Eikenskaden has become a mere curiosity. But what a curiosity.

Kozak was no fool. It's clear that the man's affinity for music was, by all accounts, far-reaching. From the nastiest and noisiest of black metal's furthest underground assaults to the baroque and romantic classic music of yester-era, one can hear a lot of elements within this album, Eikenskaden's debut and a perfect encapsulation of what the project did best. While the band would do away with the classical elements and fall head-first into old school riffage and noise, what makes 'The Black Laments Symphonie,' as well as it's follow-up 'The Last Dance,' so special is the unabashed Romantic vibe that permeates the songwriting and lyrics. Hell, throw in some organ and clean vocals and you pretty much have gothic metal. But instead, Kozak crafted a sound that is unapologetically black metal. It's certainly abrasive with all the shrieks and blast beats and lo-fi distortion that we've come to expect from the genre. It's certainly not interested in bastardizing the basic sonic blueprint, but what Kozak does within the genre that makes Eikenskaden so special. His riffs are melodic but still retain a kind of downtrodden gnarly-ness, augmented by the clarity of the distortion. Yes, there are discernible melodies here, and they're all solid.

The production is certainly low quality and can be overwhelming. Kozak's decision to go for a blistering wall-of-sound approach rather than an open-ended and less claustrophobic approach is certainly a down-side to the album. All of Eikenskaden's albums suffer from such production, making each album tough to sit through and focus on. The music hear works best when you're not trying to listen to every instrument individually. It's a rough listen that requires the listener to except everything as a single cacophonous sound. That alone makes this album more impenetrable for some, possibly most, listeners. Kozak's vocals alone are filtered through a miasma of static, obscuring the lyrics further, and the drums, my god, they're so distorted and harsh on the ears that it can get grating way too quickly. But, the overall sound is consistent and does a lot for the violence of the record.

Lyrics are something that Eikenskaden either fails or succeeds at. Really, this'll fall down to the individual tastes of the listener. Kozak isn't a master lyricist, as evident by the borderline clichéd images of sadness and lost romance and, yes, sadomasochism. Believe it or not, Eikenskaden may be one of the few bands that have approached the themes of BDSM with such earnest, lacking the gothic shock value of bands like Cradle of Filth. Remember, gothic metal this is not. The harsh sound brings these themes into a darkly personal and almost confrontational realm, drained of eroticism and instead aiming for something more genuine. It's like Kozak is screaming at the listeners as he tries to show the emotional side of BDSM. While it's only slight references littered throughout the record here, it's still greatly refreshing, God be damned. That's not to say that his ability to write lyrics are perfect. Bad grammar and overused subjects of nature and depression are all over this release. But fortunately, it's so consistent and impassioned that it never feels too tiring or unoriginal. But it can grow a bit stale by the end of the album.

All in all, 'The Black Laments Symphonie' is not perfect, but it tries so hard and goes so far with it's concepts and stylistic choices that it's hard to not get sucked into Stefan Kozak's oppressive creation. Despite the production and less-than-stellar lyricism, personally, I love this little bastard of a release. Eikenskaden is an entity that has retained a special place in my heart. Far from the worst, not quite the best. Eikenskaden is a gnarly little slice of depressive black metal so violent and so bona fide personal that one can only really applaud the late black metal Frenchman for what he's managed to accomplish. Raw, real, romantic. A real cult record.

France is just beginning to adopt the extreme form of music known only as black metal. However, listening to their music is just as depressing as listening to the current black metal scene of Poland, Norway, or any other country. 90% of the bands are generic, and don't even show on the radar of an overly populated music scene. Eikenskaden happens to be one of the few French black metal bands/artist that actually has its own distinct sound.

Eikenskaden consists of one man (to my knowledge), and what sets him apart from his other brothers in metal is his attention to detail. He crafts a melody, despite the fact that songs lack the verse-chorus pattern. Unlike other black metal bands, listening to Eikenskaden's music actually does put the listener in a mood of despair and sorrow.

This Frenchman also plays a mean guitar. He is one of an already rare breed- a black metaller that can actually play guitar. He plays it in a style similar to Michael Romeo or Yngwie Malmsteen- classical music shows a heavy influence- and each solo sounds perfectly in key, it never wanders like most other death metal or black metal guitar solos. Do not despair though, there is plenty of tremolo chord work, as well as the almost vital blastbeats.

However, the aforementioned parts are the weakest. The drums are way too high in the mix, so the guitars are at a constant conflict with the booming double bass. Because of this, the vocals are hard to pick out, especially since he uses a phone-like filter for his voice.

Despite those minor shortcomings, it seems Eikenskaden is the only black metal artist with a sense of humor, despite it's macabre intent. With the blatant horrible grammar on the song "There is 666 trees in my forest," and the sequel song "I'll go for another walk over my," and the so-stereotypical-it-hurts black metal love song "She's waiting for me behind a tree."