Prefaced with a noisy cluster of tones, Sacred White Noise greets the listener with an unbelievably striking 24-note melody that serves as an excellent introduction to the album’s queasy sound. This melody, although rigid, is far too unforgettable to be called angular. The mesmerizing main theme in “The Bright White Nothing at the End of the Tunnel” actually has three measures in 6/8 time followed by one in 3/4. Don’t worry though, even if you can barely count, every last note will be branded into your psyche. Many of the album’s riffs have a similar flavor to this, memorable despite the uncommon ways they divide up the measures before pummeling you with entrancing tremolo picking.
As a whole, Sacred White Noise successfully straddles the line between being weirdly progressive and traditionally black metal. Thantifaxath’s approach is harsh (especially the maniacal vocals), yet they maintain a strong balance by never delving into technical exercises, pure angularity, or dissonance worship. This puts the band in the same general family as later-era Enslaved, but in a dark corner of the musical map somewhere in the wide gulf between Dodecahedron and “The ConstruKction of Light” era King Crimson (and yes this means there is “bass you can hear” and it’s pure bliss)
Sacred White Noise has an incredible sense of flow. The song structures are engaging and even the segues from one song to another reveal that Thantifaxath clearly sees the big picture. Sacred White Noise is a proper album, not merely a collection of songs. Another interesting facet of the band is how much of an elegant sense of horror they have, think The Axis of Perdition but more implicit. Precise pick slides, the tinny childlike vocals on “The Bright White Nothing…,” the pale choir transition from “Where I End…” to “Gasping in Darkness,” and the mournful gypsy-esque violins - all enough to make your skin crawl. The element of fear also really helps keep the album from coming across as too sleek, despite how heavily produced it is.
While the band has a fairly heavy reliance on time signature or rhythmic shifts as the pillars of song structures, everything always comes together in a fantastic, and unexpected, way. This is because the band really overcomes metal’s tendency to slack off on the melody in favor of rhythmic (or arrhythmic) chugging. Hell, even the instrumental sections share this work ethic, having worthwhile and nuanced melodies that tie into the atmosphere without merely regurgitating the same notes. Despite the band’s weirder riffs and prog tendencies, Thantifaxath never loses sight of the overall mood and always clutches onto a powerful atmosphere. Sacred White Noise is more refreshing than sticking your head out of the window into a blizzard, listen to it. Now.
Awesome.
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