BAND OF THE WEEK: ColdWorld
The new album is only out in late September, but brace yourself right now.
Yeah, I know, it’s a douchey thing to do, get you guys all amped up (well, hopefully) about an album that’s only coming out like a month and a half from now. Writing about weird music for a living has a lot of cons, but one of the very few pros is that I’m a ridiculously privileged bastard when it comes to early access to records, but with the Band Of The Week feature I’ve always tried to time it so that stuff is already available when you read about it, or coming out on that day, or in a couple of days at most. But bear with me, will you? I just couldn’t sit on a new ColdWorld album until September 30th (when it will be officially released through Eisenwald) without shouting about it to the world at large in some way. I got the promo for ‘Isolation’, for that is the name of the new thing, a couple of days ago, and obviously being an enormous admirer of everything Mr. Georg Börner has done with this project (and beyond - let’s not forget the gorgeous Stórmir, of that Georg is a member of the absolutely magic ensemble that is Sangre De Muerdago), even including ‘Hymn To Eternal Frost’ in that Winter playlist I made for you guys a few days ago, I’ve already spent a fair bit of time going over it. I’m not going to rant away on a full review of it, because that’s not the point of this feature and also because two days aren’t nearly enough to fully digest a new ColdWorld full-length album, but from the spins I’ve given ‘Isolation’, let’s just say that the wait has been long, sure - though there have been a few smaller releases in the meantime, the last proper album ‘Autumn’ is over six years old already -, but it will have been completely worth it.
It is quite a different beast from what you might be used to, that’s the very first thing that leaps at you during the first listen. Different people might have different perceptions of what this one-man band is, but the majority would place them within the boundaries of atmospheric black metal, even touching upon DSBM territories with some darker past material, but in ‘Isolation’, even if it still carries some of those characteristics, is so much more than a set of “genre rules”. A product of exactly what its title transpires, built during the pandemic years, and conveying an expression of that feeling that is often deeply touching, it’s absolutely transcendental music in some of the most intense parts. And intense isn’t, in this case, synonymous with noisy, or raging, or any of that - on the contrary, it’s some of the most luminous, almost deliriously melancholic bits that hit you the hardest, in a game of soft but clear, ever-flowing contrasts that the album builds throughout its 43 minutes. It’s a much more subtle and genre-elusive work than ever before for ColdWorld, even things like a rawer Mono might come to mind at times, or, as the press release that came with the promo very accurately suggests, My Dying Bride (I would also add ‘Brave Murder Day’-era Katatonia to that mix), in the parts where the guitar is cleaner and less abrasive - but again, by no means less affecting.
The vocals are another area that has shifted considerably from the earlier records - a sparser use lends their impact that much more emotional and harrowing, and their variety is simply staggering. It is, in fact, not until the third track, ‘Walz’ (the first single), a good twelve minutes into the album, that you actually hear any voice at all, and those growls are but one of the many forms of expression Georg has worked with this time. Chants, wails, declamations, whispers and what the press release hilariously calls “a fascinating form of what is possibly throat singing” (sure, let’s go with that - truth be told, I wouldn’t know what to call them either), the voice is but another instrument contributing to the heart-stopping, enebriating whole.
So yeah, ‘Walz’ is the only song publicly available so far, but do trust me when I tell you that any song from ‘Isolation’ could be here as a single and it would have left you with a similar kind of giddy anticipation. Dude, even the press photos are perfect, which is why I made it a point to have both on this post. It is that good of an album, and it will have an enormous impact and hopefully get ColdWorld a little closer to the recognition the project should always have had. I’ve lived for but two days with it, and it has made my world substantially less cold already.
