WHIRLING “Faceless Phenomena” (2010)

This is a strange record, really. Most of its content isn’t exactly new, and after some years in wait this ugly disc has been tuned a bit and finally published, yet it wasn’t released to please anybody, except the old hunchback, professor Eerie Dissonance, and his lovely secretary, the deceptively beautiful Mrs. Waste Away. WHIRLING offers us disturbing music within a seemingly primitive flair, yet with many edges. Dirty necrofolkloric black metal with ingredients of doom, gloomy psychedelic rock and darkest singer / songwriter stuff. Imagine The Gault convincing a depressive Fenriz to “jam” with them and above all Bergraven-vocalist Pär Gustafsson singing like he doesn’t know whether he just left or is short before entering the asylum, and you maybe catch a glimpse of the murky atmosphere. Criminals and ghost writers are said to have been seen in the dirty corners of the downtown, whispering to each other that this drug empowers the imagination to travel to places once sung about by a certain Kvohst on the debut album of a back then similarly irritating band. But who believes the gossip of junkies, especially of agm.com personnel?! If you like the challenge of the nevertheless unforeheard with its very own twisted logic, if you agree that behind the absurd might hide a deeper beauty, if you know and feel the difference between melancholy (often a driving force for creativity) and depression (stagnation), if you can handle sounds far below (…or above…?) the sterile perfection of post modern studio abysses and feel fascinated by the atmosphere of specific bands like Armagedda, you should definitely dare to face the faceless phenomena and stare behind the masks! Whom do you see, pardon – hear?

Thor Joakimsson

VITALS:

Release:  February 2010 e.v.
Label:  Eisenwald Tonschmiede
Avantgenre:  Obscure Psychedelic Dark Metal
Duration: 39:00
Origin:  Sverige
Official site:  http://www.myspace.com/whirling
Review online since:  10.03.2010 / 20:01:29