I - WITHIN DEEP DARK CHAMBERS

"Within Deep Dark Chambers" is the debut full-length studio album by Swedish black metal act Shining. The album was released through Selbstmord Services in 2000. While it´s the band´s first full-length release, Shining did release the two-track "Submit To Selfdestruction" EP in 1998. Since then band leader Niklas Kvarforth has taken over the vocal duties and assembled a whole new lineup to support him. Born in 1983 Kvarforth was still a very young man/boy when writing and recording the material for "Within Deep Dark Chambers" and considering the depressive darkness of the music, he wasn´t exactly a happy teen.

Stylistically "Within Deep Dark Chambers" is dark, angsty, grim, and depressive black metal, featuring noisy atmospheric riffing and pounding drums, and some chilling cold haunting leads, which provide the music with its sad atmosphere (along with the occasional use of eerie sounding keyboards). The vocals are raw and snarling black metal screaming. Kvarforth masters the art of using repetition to build atmosphere and its one of the great strengths of "Within Deep Dark Chambers". One other great asset is the tempo changes, which are quite effective. While Shining often blast away, they also sometimes take the tempo down and play some pretty heavy mid-paced parts with a great brutal groove.

"Within Deep Dark Chambers" features a raw, distorted, high end sound production, which suits the material well, but for all the grimness and noisy nature of the sound production, it´s actually one of the better sounding lo-fi black metal recordings. I can even hear the bass.

In many ways "Within Deep Dark Chambers" is the arch typical depressive black metal album, but there is quality here that you don´t always hear on other similar releases. Kvarforth is a songwriter and he understands the importance of musical drama and dynamics, so while this at times may sound a bit one-dimensional and repetitive it´s clear there is intent behind the compositional style, the production values, and the raw musical performances. A 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.

(Originally posted on Metal Music Archives).

'I - Within Deep Dark Chambers' - Shining (4/10)

Here is the debut album, by the self-proclaimed suicidal black metal band Shining. Although I certainly prefer the band's later, more complex and experimental material, I've generally found that I can muster appreciation for just about any angle the realm of black metal has been able to throw at me. This is not to suggest that I have liked everything I have heard though, only that I am fairly indiscriminate when it comes to particular takes on the style. Shining was already established in my mind as being a great band by the time I found my way to listening to their debut 'Within Deep Dark Chambers', and with a 2011 re-release impending, there was no better time to check out this classic of depressive black metal than now. While I have found some easy favourites in this particularly introspective and dismal black metal scene, Shining's debut sadly fails to inspire me or my emotions in any major way, instead coming across to me as a rather generic piece of Scandinavian black metal.

Like much of the rawer black metal, the music Shining makes here on 'Within Deep Dark Chambers' is particularly repetitive, taking simple riffs and using them sometimes throughout the course of an entire song, changing things up here and there to keep it from being a total bore. Save for a few softer moments- which almost always come as a refreshment- the blastbeats are in full swing here, recorded no less in the sort of way someone might typically expect raw black metal to be recorded. The music and riffs are never really beautiful, but are certainly depressive; the endless repetition and generic nature of the record tends to wear thin before long.

Towards the end of the record, things do start to pick up, even ending on a higher note with a cover of dark metal pioneers Bethlehem, which is a pleasant exchange to cap off the album. Raw black metal certainly has its place, but Shining does little here to really inspire the imagination, although it is certainly not a complete failure. There is not much to grasp onto here so for anyone but fans of the less refined black metal sound, I would instead recommend the sort of things Shining has crafted later in their career.

Shining's debut album mashes up Burzumesque black metal with gloomy, doomy riffs and subject matter to create a sonic journey down into the deepest vaults of depression. There's a certain lifelessness to the album which would be a detriment to most circumstances but works well to evoke the misery they are aiming for - this is music which has to make a conscious effort just to get out of bed and face the day, and is always half-tempted to grab a handful of sleeping pills and not get up at all. Niklas Kvarforth is, of course, still with us (the unspeakably silly Ghoul incident and other moments of absolute assholery notwithstanding) so clearly the process of making this music is therapeutic to a certain extent, and when I'm in the right mood it's an intriguing and maudlin experience, though I wouldn't want to listen to it too much if I were actually in a major grump and the band's schtick wears thin over time.

There are some people who are just born to be unhappy despite living in the most fortunate of circumstances. For some reason, Scandinavia has plenty of unhappy souls despite having one of the highest standards of living in the world. Such is the case with young Niklas Kvarforth who started his depressive black metal band SHINING (the Swedish band, not the Norwegian jazz-metal group of the same name) at the tender age of 12. Depressive black metal set itself apart early on in the 90s distinguishing itself other black metal in that it doesn't focus on misanthropy or Satanic themes but rather on self-destruction and all the negative emotions associated with suicide and self hatred. WITHIN DEEP DARK CHAMBERS is the full debut album by Kvarforth who contributes vocals, guitar and keyboard with his lineup of other sickened souls: Tusk on bass, Ted Wedebrand on drums and additional disturbed vocalizations by Andreas Classen.

This debut album is pretty much in line with the depressive black metal scene of the 90s in that it utilizes an overall repetitive, hypnotic and monotonous feel that incorporates the wall of sound guitar frenzy with atmospheric keys, occasional chimes and midstream drums meaning that blastbeats are uncommon and the drums lazily accompany the fuzz feed frenzy. Perhaps the most "depressive" aspect of SHINING's first album is not only the uncompromising fury of the music but mostly of Kvarforth's anguished and tortured vocals above all else. This is one of those albums that simply excels in distressed fury and keeps me on pins and needles wondering if dude isn't gonna do himself in on the final track just to have a musical place in history. Fortunately not so as i like future SHINING albums better than this one. But wow. This definitely fits the depressive black metal bill. Not recommended as music for grandma's funeral.

While this album excels at keeping every shimmer of light from entering the boarded up windows and screams a razor blade, case of aspirin with vodka and carbon monoxide party, the music is fairly straight forward as this was before SHINING started experimenting with more progressive elements as to add more sophistication to self-hating pity party. The music here has the regular black metal buzzsaw grunge, where the guitars and bass are one and the raspy vocals wax and wane between traumatic black metal tantrums about how horrible the world is with utter resignation to the life sucks affirmations. The weakness here is the percussion as it is as languid as a salamander in the arctic and merely keeps the beat and not much else. Overall, this is a decent slice of depressive black metal but some of the tracks which hint towards progressiveness such as "Stonelands" and "And Only Silence Remains?" tend to meander for far too long, however the inclusion of church bells and slow parts in the latter does make it a bit more interesting at times. 3.5 rounded down