Nordvargr — In oceans abandoned by life I drown…

From the first growl on, the name "Henrik Nordvargr Björkk" seems a proper indication for the grimness that In Oceans Abandoned… has in store. Nordvargr's resume shows many guises, from Toroidh to Goatvargr, but seemingly without exception these call invoke darkness and grimness.

In oceans abandoned by life I drown... to live again as a servant of darkness, as it's fully titled, is no exception in that respect. The first 20 minutes have droning, distorted chords, at a steady pace, in which the blackened light of sunn0))) shines through. A deep drone, but with sharper edges though. After that we fall back into the sounds of bubbling sulphur after which we continue our droney trip into dark oceans. The two pieces making up these fifty minutes do not have the soothing quality some drones have, there's too much distortion and too much activity to easily float along. The pace is slow, but crusty and crushing. Towards the end there's a few sounds resembling drums, but those are as groovy as drifting ice.

Drone seems to be the main course, a primordial soup in which we also find elements of black metal, noise and dark ambient and thus Nordvargr successfully paints a dark and oppressive atmosphere that. Sadly the superdeluxe packaging is sold out already, but the normal edition does look quite OK too in a nice mini-gatefold, including an innersleeve (albeit visually a bit safe maybe, with the well-tested duo Stephen O'Malley/Seldon Hunt responsible).