STRANGLING FROM WITHIN

Strangling From Within is the debut album from Norwegian experimental metal band Peccatum. Peccatum was to start with a project band for Ihsahn, frontman and guitarist in infamous Norwegian black metal band Emperor but after Emperor disbanded Peccatum became Ihsahn´s main focus for a couple of years. Peccatum is very different from Emperor but it might appeal to the ones who favoured the last Emperor album Prometheus - The Discipline of Fire & Demise or Ihsahn´s solo albums.

The music is black metal inspired without actually being black metal. The black metal feeling is mostly due to Ihsahn´s growling. The pace is generally much slower than on any of Emperor´s output except for The Change which has blast beat sections. There are both classically inspired female singing and more avant garde high pitched screams from Ihsahn´s wife Ihriel, clean vocals from Lord Pz and both black metal rasps and clean singing from Ihsahn. Lots of orchestral keyboard themes swirl around in the compositions making the music symphonic, multilayered and at times complex. There´s some kind of twisted beauty in the music but not the kind of simple melodic beauty that bands like Within Tempation or Nightwish create.

The musicianship is great and once again Ihsahn proves why he is considered one of the most important musicians on the Norwegian metal scene. The vocals from the three members of the band are the main focus on Strangling From Within and all three are great singers. They all have a personal approach to singing.

The production is very good. Clean and sharp. No one is credited here for playing the drums and they might be computer created for all I know. They sound great though.

Strangling From Within is a good experimental metal album. It doesn´t quite fit my taste but I can appreciate the will to experiment and innovate which has always been a dominant part of Ihsahn´s music. 3 stars is well deserved and I can fully understand if others give this one 4 stars. The compositions are of very high quality so it´s a matter of aquired taste for me with this one.