Schemerfluisteringen (I) / La Mythe de Sisyphe by Herfstdood / Kärv | Review

Autumn black metal season is officially open, and SneeuwStorm Produkties kicked it off with a split that sounds like a long night under a stormy sky. Herfstdood, the Dutch blackgaze project of a veteran known as A., takes the first half. Kärv, the apocalyptic black metal outfit of Swedish multi-instrumentalist Grìshâ, takes the second. Across six tracks, both sides wrestle with the same question: what happens when heaven goes quiet?

"Apogeum" opens on twinkling, jangly guitars before the riffs and rasps arrive in an immaculate tone. The title names the point where the moon swings farthest from the earth, and the song moves like a moonlit ocean under that distant pull. A violent, noisy tide rolls in, then subsides into drifting, serene eeriness. Even at its farthest point, the moon still moves the water.

"Zwarte Hemel" is the standout of Herfstdood's side. A groovy pluck kicks things off, then the distorted grit and jangling guitars lock together into a tidal wave of emotion that builds into a marching, gothic anthem. In Dutch, "hemel" means both sky and heaven, and the song carries both: the wonder and terror of a monumental storm rolling overhead. Psalm 18 says God "made darkness his secret place," hidden in "thick clouds of the skies." This is triumphant black metal that keeps the fear of the Lord. I absolutely love it.

That thread runs straight into "Sine Nomine / Deus Absconditus," Latin for "without a name / the hidden God." The phrase comes from Isaiah 45:15, and the verse ends by naming him anyway: "O God of Israel, the Saviour." Somber guitar meets doom-metal fuzz, as if Radiohead brought out Pallbearer for a song. The result is cavernous and huge. Truly expert blackgaze craft, and a fitting sound for a God who hides without leaving.

Kärv flips the album over to something rawer. "Weave of Nyx" keeps the grit but layers in melody without overproducing a note, vocals included. Sweeping, almost classic-rock guitar work twinkles into rapturous black metal, mythic and cosmic, grounded on this mortal plane but always looking toward the thin places. "Into Erevos" gets kinda funky and kinda doomy. Then the late vocals arrive with an insane, beefy delivery.

"Ipnos" opens on a crunchy, almost emo guitar intro before sliding seamlessly into heavenly, frantic black metal, with breakdowns and grooves along the way. Grìshâ switches tempos and moods without breaking a sweat. The sound stays in melodic black metal territory while the structure blends genres freely. For me, this track is the most impressive on Kärv’s side.

Together, the titles seem to tell a story of their own, pulling from classic mythology and scripture. In Hesiod, Night and Erebus are born from Chaos, and Night gives birth to Sleep and his brother Death. Kärv walks down that family tree and stops one step short of Thanatos, the god Sisyphus famously chained. The philosopher Camus pictured Sisyphus under a silent sky and concluded, "One must imagine Sisyphus happy." Scripture has a different word for that last step. Paul calls the death of believers sleep, and Jesus said Lazarus was sleeping just before he called him out of the tomb.

Herfstdood's devotional melancholy will feel like home to fans of Vials of Wrath and Hesychast, with an Alcest-worthy shimmer on top. Kärv's Middle Eastern-tinged melodies and folk-rooted grit play as if Wovenhand dragged into the black metal underground.

Camus imagined a man pushing a stone uphill forever and calls to find some form of happiness within it. Easter morning starts with a stone rolled away for good. Schemerfluisteringen (I) / La Mythe de Sisyphe lives in the twilight between those two stones. It’s honest about the black sky and the long night, and listens hard for the whisper inside both. Only 100 CDs exist. Grab one before they're gone, because it’s truly a stellar split record.