REDEFINING DARKNESS

I first heard of Shining and Niklas Kvarforth by reading accounts of the ludicrous "Ghoul" stunt perpetrated by the band a while back. This manufactured controversy was ultimately in aid of promoting music which is decent enough, though often thematically repetitive Aside from an obligatory black metal denunciation of Christianity in the final track, For the God Below, the album finds Niklas singing (screaming, roaring, growling, ranting) about depression, suicide, and murder in disturbingly frank terms, backed by dark and dirty black metal thunder from his bandmates. None other than Andy LaRoque - yes, King Diamond's Andy LaRoque - steps in to provide a guest performance, along with a range of other guests, and if the performances occasionally seem to lean in surprisingly commercial directions for a band with Shining's forbidding reputation, this is never so blatant as to disrupt the aesthetic they're going for. An interesting effort which prompted me to plumb the depths of Shining further, though ultimately I came to the conclusion that their music is interesting but rarely the sort of thing which becomes a keeper.