When we’re met with talent that seemingly never ceases to amaze, it’s always endlessly fascinating to watch such talent propagate outwards and become such a tour de force that not only explores new horizons but comes to embody only the finest aspects of its sound. For several years now, that’s precisely what Panopticon has been accomplishing for everything related to atmospheric black and folk metal. While always at the forefront of what the genre can become in thoughtful and masterful hands, it’s in this new album, the conclusion of Panopticon’s Laurentia trilogy, that we see Panopticon once more at the very top of the food chain with an deeply evocative and captivating performance.
Having started this trilogy with “…And Again Into the Light” and continued with “The Rime of Memory”, it’s in the ending offered by “Det Hjemsøkte Hjertet” that we see Panopticon take stock of how far it has come and then how we as people are the sum of our parts, a collective of experiences that all eventually travel towards an inevitable doom. In such themes, there is darkness to be handled, but it’s in this careful and immeasurably considerate approach that the record takes on an air that I find almost impossibly gorgeous. Panopticon has only been on the rise since its inception, and here is anything but different. Once again, the great wilderness serves as the perfect backdrop for what Panopticon sought to deliver throughout “Det Hjemsøkte Hjertet” with the very fur of the caribou finding an important place in the cycles and tragedies that swirl within these seven track. Together, they tug at the heartstrings by invoking the past, sealing the future, and delivering an experience upon the listener’s flesh and spirit that is downright dramatic in all that it seeks to elicit. Many creations of this corner of black metal seek to capture your imagination and root you in place, but it’s here that Panopticon yet again does far more than that. Your very soul feels like it must dissect every layer of the creation lest you do some sort of disservice to the art, the natural world, yourself, or some combination of the three.
It’s no wonder that Panopticon is once more in the conversation for delivering one of the best albums of the year, and while that is something we hear constantly whenever the act comes back around, I cannot help but feel as though it’s particularly deserving here. “Det Hjemsøkte Hjertet” is nothing if not a hauntingly beautiful listen, damn near tear-inducing at times.
LISTEN to “Det Hjemsøkte Hjertet” on Bandcamp here.
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