ISC Podcast Ep. 7: Review of IHSAHN’s ‘The Fascination Street Sessions’ LP, 06.03.2023
(Note: This review was originally posted on our old website, innerstrengthcheck.com. Due to the fine folks over at WordPress, that website is now toast. Henceforth, please refer to the current website for any new material! Links on socials and Youtube to be updated as I get to each one. Regards, - Brady)
(photo credit: Bjørn Tore Moen)
Written Review:
I’ll leave any generalised assumptions about your knowledge (or lack thereof) regarding Norwegian genre-melting progressive black metal patriarch Ihsahn at the door. If you’re into heavy music, you’ll doubtless have heard the Emperor frontman’s classic blackened material, and have at least an awareness of his solo side project.
Ah yes. Ihsahn. A man brave enough to wear turtlenecks in a sea of corpsepaint, with not a single hint of a fuck given.
And yet, a man grounded enough in the scene to tour with his Emperor homies, his solo project brethren and also come up with the current release.
To produce an EP as part of an educational program for budding music producers and sound engineers at URM Academy, shows a sincerity for the man’s devotion to the world hidden within the studio’s back-end. Helming production alongside the mighty Jens Bogren (Opeth, Dimmu Borgir, Arch Enemy, Powerwolf) of Fascination Street Studios, the project was completed over 10 grueling days (reportedly, sessions took on average from 14-16 hours at times).
To quote the press release:
“‘Throughout the whole experience, the URM Academy team captured everything on video with Jens Bogren adding commentary to the production techniques used, with detail on mic placements, preamps, drumhead tunings, sharing his methodology and drilling down into what goes into a recording such as this.’”
What a schooling those students copped from one of the greats, eh?
Speaking of schooling - I’d like to give my own lecture on the experience’s end-product, the extremely imaginatively-titled Fascination Street Sessions EP.
It’s three tracks, but it warrants a full review. Why? Because it’s fucking Ihsahn, that’s why!
First of the trio, opener ‘The Observer’ does what it says on the tin. A lilting and lofty number, it’s a melodic but doomy affair. Lumbering at steady and methodical pace, the drumming of longtime skinsman Tobias Ørnes Andersen tumbles forward, pulling back with restraint to give air to some ethereal keys and vocals. Melodic verses are punctuated only for the briefest moments by the frontmans’ trademark shriek, and requisite classic-metal hat-tip leads and shredding. Keyboardist Øystein Aadland provides the lion’s share of vocal duties for once, and there’s a decidedly Scandinavian dreaminess to the cleans in between those signature black metal barks.
Those lamenting what feels like a softly-spoken departure from Ihsahn’s bombastic modus operandi are more easily swayed back by the punchier second track, ‘Contorted Monuments’. It could’ve just as easily rolled straight off the on-ramp of The Adversary or AngL with not a raised eyebrow - at first. Sure, there’s the typical injection of classic-metal bravado as we’re directed into that punchier tempo and the steady-but-angular, lightly-dissonant riffing that is Ihsahn’s solo project all over. Even then, however, there’s something so slightly and deliberately off-base here from the norm. Perhaps it’s the more new-wave feel of the keys in the first half, which relent back into that more familiar, operatic pomp which gives the listener an almost imperceptible tang of something different. Not off, just... different.
After all these releases, it’s pretty cool to be reviewing a mere three tracks, hear something that incites a ‘here we go again’ reaction, only to have you turn around after first listen and really question if something else hadn’t just been snuck in there. Right under your nose.
Well, ears. You get me.
And just like that, to keep you on your toes in case you hadn’t read the presser - along comes the folksy whistle and lead guitar refrain that introduces ‘Dom Andra’. I’m not going to pretend I’m schooled up on Kent, the Swedish artist from which this apparent-nostalgia-sensation came.
However, hearing Jonas Renske in a far, far less solemn atmosphere than brooding across Katatonia’s empty expanse is admittedly jarring at first.
It’s a cognitive dissonance that still works musically, but my frontal lobe and hippocampus are working overtime in heated debate with my auditory cortex as to why I’m hearing a vaguely-90’s/00’s-sounding Swedish pop-rock cover. I realise a few bars in, that I’ve completely forgotten this is a cover, and am unsurprised for it.
Who else would have me so readily comfortable to hear such dynamic genre shifts in the space of a few tracks?
Going in blind, I felt almost refreshed by the original’s more upbeat, refined edges. Which isn’t to say this cover is bad at all; if anything, it’s demonstrable evidence that Ihsahn (and guest vocalist Jonas, who fits the bill smooth as butter) are equally skilled in evoking their own atmosphere from whichever genre they so please.
Much like the joke that ghosts tell Chuck Norris stories around the campfire at night, I’m convinced more with each passing release that Ihsahn is one of those rare musical craftsmen who can seemingly just absorb influences through some aural osmosis. Not only that, the man reflects these through his own aesthetic in a way that feels whole, not porous or hamfisted.
Well worth checking out, and hopefully an omen of more to come from our blackened prog-master.
Links:
Website: http://www.ihsahn.com
IG: https://www.instagram.com/ihsahnofficial/
YT: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLgDklheFcxYYaDgVDsT-CQ/videos
Fascination Street: https://www.fascinationstreet.se