Graveland - Will Stronger Than Death
March 24 2008 at 07:26:42 AM
No record this year has been so burdened by pretense as Will Stronger Than Death and perhaps none are more deserving of such dramatic claims. Kept alive by sheer obsession - a life so entrenched in fantasy and role-playing that it reaches near-Trekkie levels of man-child delusion, parlayed into an almost clockwork release schedule which, aside from 2005’s Fire Chariot of Destruction, has proven numbingly consistent, Rob Darken rides alone once more, with a freedom that is stifling in its narrow practice.
Not forgetting his fealty to the duplicitous maxims of David Lane et al, Darken has generally placed archetypes before rhetoric. Lately, however, these albums begin to feel like mere accessory soundtracks to his “Viking Festival” re-enactments, more epic background music than anything else.
Real drums are finally brought back into play, adding greatly to the sound overall, but remain secondary to the main theme (driven almost exclusively by keyboards and the Arvo Pärt-like choirs), which is more intricate compared to the last Graveland record, but still teeters on self-parody. There is not one song on the album that couldn’t be easily shuffled together with any handful of tracks from Graveland’s past 5 albums, including the now barely distinguished side-project, Lord Wind. Maybe next time (and by now you can almost set your watch by it) he’ll at least have sense enough to bring back the Arthur Rackham paintings…
[Todd DePalma]
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