Shining
Blackjazz
Rating: 4.0/5.0
Label: The End Records
Norway’s Shining released In the Kingdom of Kitsch You Will Be A Monster in 2005 to challenge their own assumptions about music. Originally an honest-to-God avant garde jazz group, they had turned to black metal in a serious way, kicking it in the throat. After solidifying a more stable sound on their 2007 follow-up, Grindstone, Shining return with Blackjazz’s high gloss and heavy agenda. It’s a punishing 57 minutes that only stretches over nine songs- four of which eclipse the eight-minute mark. Yet this isn’t a record that pounds people into exhaustion. Instead, an odd serenity sets in; a feeling that personal demons have been exorcised and knots in your stomach have been untwisted. Perhaps it’s the same type of calm you see with metal musicians in magazine interviews. Not only is this Shining’s best album, but also their most cathartic.
Sean Beavan, mixer of Nine Inch Nails’ ascendant albums, serves as producer and his contributions are palpable. Beavan’s penchant for adding a rich-sounding Gothic creepiness manages to draw out every song to its cruelest potential. Likewise, his experience in putting together digitized music and heavy metal guitar works to the band’s advantage on “Fisheye.” Lead singer and saxophonist Jørgen Munkeby probably enjoys the most benefits under this new recording scheme; his free jazz playing on “Healter Skelter” (not a Beatles cover) newly possesses a frightening and aggressive character.
This isn’t experimentation so much as deliberate envelope-pushing. While Shining aren’t afforded some of the freedom that their lower fidelity early works provide, they are given the perfect opportunity to display the strength of their cohesion. This means raising the bar on just how brutal they can be as a collaborative force. “Blackjazz Deathtrance” is a nightmarish technological assault highlighted by the complex drumming of Torstein Lofthus as well as Munkeby’s own tribal screams. Though for an album with a soldier’s discipline, some puzzling decisions are made. Tracks one and six are satirically titled “The Madness and the Damage Done” despite being wholly distinct entities. Likewise, tracks three and four are named “Exit Sun.” The third runs eight and a half minutes while the fourth plays for only a shade over thirty seconds. It’s a minor complaint but these duplicate titles make the band’s presentation somewhat out of focus.
Appropriately, the record ends with a hell-breathing cover of King Crimson’s “21st Century Schizoid Man,” featuring Grutle Kjellson of Enslaved on vocals. Many critics have speculated that Shining’s history of opening for Enslaved has had a positive effect on their mastery of black metal. That assessment may be true, but Blackjazz is more than the sum of lessons learned and formulas adopted. It’s also an olive branch of the best kind. As avant garde and cross-genre metal attract more audiophiles to a foreign music culture there’s naturally going to be some tension. Like many genres, metal has a subdivided, entrenched fanbase whom will be rightfully skeptical of newcomers that find such dark and polarizing music through indie rock websites. Shining is proving that there is a way to extend a bridge to disparate listenerships by playing with a fierce and passionate creativity that makes everyone stand at attention.
by Neal Fersko
