Mysterious Semblance

Striborg has been known to be a hidden gem of the one man black metal music scene, with his weird and dissonant approach to his music, his affinity for nature, and even his chill outlook on life is pretty unusual for one man black metal due to how misanthropic and mentally messed up the members of one man black metal projects tend to be (Malefic being a misanthrope supreme, Wrest seeing some grim shit in his life etc etc). Sin Nanna's (or Russell as his real name is easier to type here) approach to black metal is less misanthropic and depressing, and instead the soundscape he creates is closer to a call to the lush forests of Tasmania, like an overprotective deity that hates outsiders.

This 78 minute offering from Striborg is definitely the project at its spookiest, and oddly sounds like someone wandering into a forest overlooked by said forest deity at night, and this album is the soundtrack to said adventure in the forest with the deity's supervision. It begins with a droning intro that repeats itself for four minutes, which I like to interpret as the protagonist approaching the forest, with the fading out signifying that he finally encroaches on the deity's forest, with Spectral Trees picking up from where the intro left off. The rest of the album's raw soundscape is just an exhibition of what this weird forest has in store for us, we cannot see it, but the audio can give us a good idea of how it would look once we start imagining it. I'd like to imagine the ending of "As Sad As The Cemetery...." fading out signifying that the protagonist leaves the forest, or if you listen to the 2018 version, the outro track that lasts just over a minute, with the spooky droning keyboards indicating that the protagonist did not make it out unscathed, with "Lurking The Murky Damp Forest" being the track that symbolizes that the protagonist has incurred the wrath of the deity/forest and attacks the protagonist. The lyrics seem to support this too, with Cemetery ending with the protagonist leaving the cemetery/forest and bidding farewell to the spirits residing there, promising to join them once he dies. (Although no lyrics were published for the bonus tracks)

Musically, this album is simultaneously familiar and alienating. Familiar in the way that the song structures are similar to most one-man black metal projects where the instruments are pretty simplistic and droning, but also alienating due to the weird mixing and production (yes this is the production section). The production here is very harsh and raw (but not always), and at its harshest it can be even harsher than most "raw black metal" due to how thin the guitars and how the drums sound like a garbage can (not as bad as St Anger though). Remember how most DSBM projects include noise elements to make their instruments blend in? Well they are absent here, and instead the guitars have such a thin sound that they BECOME the noise, with the keyboards providing an eerie backdrop, and ironically the bass here is not just audible, but it becomes the lead melody by providing variation in this droning song, all this while the vocals are weaving in and out of the song, providing a view into what the protagonist feels in it.

Not going to put much words into the songwriting because one man black metal projects tend to be pretty simplistic when it comes to stuff like this, and the entire album sounds weirdly progressive with how varied the sections can be within a song, while never repeating them. Take Spectral Trees for example (again), it begins with the droning riffs I've mentioned earlier, but 1/3 of the way through it changes into a dark ambient song before repeating the first riff but sped up, and then ending with a blast beat section that gradually fades out. This happens a lot in this album, I was pretty surprised by the variety especially when one of the most accalimed DSBM/ambient records has less of it (Subliminal Genocide).

One thing I have a gripe about this album is the thin guitars, but this is more of a nitpick so bear with me. The guitar tone occasionally changes from one song to the other. I really liked the thin sound from Spectral Trees but once I get to Ghostly Pallid Hand of Fear, the guitar gets a lot thicker, closer to something like DMDS era Mayhem, and the guitars are back in the spotlight, spearheading the song with its melodies (although Cemetary marks the return of the thin guitars). Maybe it is just me but I prefer if Russell kept the same noise-like thin guitars throughout the album, it might have made this album even better.

This is probably the best work from Russell/Sin Nanna, excluding his coldwave/blackwave stuff as they are too different from black metal. If you are still sitting on the fence regarding checking this project out, pick this up as your introduction to Striborg, because if you don't like this, it's safe to say that you might not like the rest of his discography.

Highlights: Mysterious Semblance of Spectral Trees, As Sad As a Cemetary in the Winter Darkness, Lurking the Murky Damp Forest

This is perhaps the weirdest album I have heard from this productive Tasmanian artist. Right from the start with that long and eerie intro you are plunged into Striborg man Sin-Nanna's mystical and damp forest world where his only company is the dark trees, the shy nocturnal animals, the winds and the rains. (I believe he doesn't even have a phone connection to the outisde world.) The all-instrumental intro leads into the epic title track "Mysterious semblance of spectral trees" which is very long and meandering and barely holds together in parts but which also conveys the artist's isolation and the dark atmospheres of his home effectively. Bass guitar melodies that are deliberately off-key, percussion rhythms that change a lot, mood swings and faint buzzsaw guitar resembling constant drizzling rain make this an unusual black metal piece. The singing is so drenched in reverb as to be washed-out and this makes Sin-Nanna sound very like a remote and sinister forest god. A delirious, almost demented quality to the music exists. Bewitching keyboard tones add magic and mystery to the distant guitars. About the 12th minute the song goes off an almost free jazz tangent and the rhythm section takes over the rest of the track as though with a life of its own.

Between this marathon and the last track there are five other tracks of which two are instrumental ambient poems with descriptive titles: "Dark storm brooding / Lightning in the southe" is a mysterious droning meditation with clouds delineated by synth melodies hit by slashes of rumble, and "The screaming winds" which has churning blizzard guitar and more ethereal synth tones. Between these two tracks you have three songs which are tight compared to the long songs and slightly more like conventional black metal with definite melodies and riffs, and guitars acting like guitars and not like a drizzly backdrop. The singing is still very washed-out and almost acidic, taking secondary place to the music which can have a very trancey and hypnotic effect. "As sad as a cemetery in the winter darkness" has really spidery vocals and the production sounds as if battery acid is raining down as Sin-Nanna as he plays.

The last track "Lurking the murky damp forest" is another long epic remarkable for passages of high black metal drama that are full of sadness, longing and pain. Even in Sin-Nanna's private world melancholy is never far away. As the song progresses an unseen spirit infects the music and takes it to a whole new level, psychedelic in nature and possessing tragic majesty. In about the last third of the track, Striborg really starts to rock out, preparing to zoom off on a black metal psychedelic trip in another universe, the music building in eager anticipation of release from the mortal plane. All of a sudden there's a shut-down, the spirit departs, a few wisps of ambient tone and it's all over!

Much of Striborg's work is good if highly unusual for most black metal fans with the rhythm section tending to come to the fore and the bass sometimes taking the role of lead guitar while the actual guitars themselves fade into a just barely audible presence. "Mysterious semblance" is outstanding in its ambition, blending psychedelia, high emotion and ambient tone poetry under the black metal umbrella. Although the production is tinny and fairly basic, the musicianship and arrangements are very polished. The atmosphere is strange, bleak and very cold. Sin-Nanna's singing is not great (he has done better on other recordings) and on a few songs here his voice is drowning under layers and layers of echo but to be honest I can't see how he can improve this aspect without affecting the atmosphere of the album. The music itself is more than enough to express Sin-Nanna's disgust at the way humans have ruined the natural environment and his desire to escape humankind and merge with the dark forest.

I recommend this album as a great introduction for those people who are not already listening to Striborg's work.

This is Striborg's second album, his first "Spiritual Catharsis" was a harsh and unrelentingly cruel descent into the darkest forests and the bleakest realms of the soul. It had a very distinct guitar tone (like all Striborg) and a distinct dark atmosphere. This album follows suit, with a distinct feeling on it, less based in the forest, and more based on the dark visions of the soul. The guitar tone is less cathartic, and more atmospheric, while keyboard is featured much more, with strong keyboard tones mixed with strange ethereal tones. The bass is less audible then before (most of his demo work, and on "Spirital Catharsis" the bass was quite strong and clean, providing a strange framework), sometimes it becomes more audible, sometimes less. The vocals tend to be more agressive as well. But there is a distance on here, perhaps less cruel feeling, but still quite strong. Striborg is not concerned with the listeners own perceptions. You have to get used to his methods, which is more like early black metal. Bathory didn't bow down to peoples needs when he recorded "Under the Sign of the Black Mark" with that harsh guitar tone (which is by the way an obvious influence on Striborg's chosen guitar tone), instead people had to grow to like it. When the artist places artistry above pleasing the masses, that is when innovation begins to grow, and with Striborg one can hear innovation growing. On each of his releases, even the demos, one can hear the boundaries of black metal being pushed forward, even as the music itself is solidly grounded in the black metal of old.
This release is like all Striborg essential. But Striborg is true cult, being beyond even the kvlt bastards that are giving the style a bad name. Striborg should be listened to by all people who want to hear where the true future of the style lies, but sadly most people will probably not even realize the greatness of this work, because like all great things it is so idiosyncratic that it passes by the minds of lesser men. In short, true eeire forest black metal, true-er then any "trve" band could ever be.