There’s a actual threat that this extraordinary debut album from Icelandic heavy music’s freshest artistic drive will vanish within the inevitable pre-Christmas frenzy. Then again, Múr is completely magnificent, and denying the world an opportunity to listen to it for an additional month or two can be a disgusting abuse of energy. Anybody who loves epic, highly effective and fervent, ingenious steel wants this of their ears instantly.
Like most of the intriguing bands which have emerged from Iceland over the past 20 years, Múr sound monstrous, windswept and fiendishly arduous to outline. Broadly talking, these songs occupy a candy spot between cinematic post-metal and a refined pressure of progressive dying, and there are actually moments that take a extra direct strategy, with big riffs redolent of Gojira’s fluid brutality.
However the sum of those elements is one thing else completely: a churning maelstrom of leftfield heaviness whereby hypnotic, shoegazey melodies and textures nestle up in opposition to icy, concrete-clad aggression, and a dense environment of elemental dread. Keytar-wielding frontman Kári Haraldsson snaps seamlessly from a haunting, angelic croon to diaphragm-mincing growls from tormented depths, as his thick, sonorous synth surges underpin each abominable wall of riffs, continuously dragging the outcomes into blearily lysergic realms.
However that is greater than an train in otherworldly environment. These songs resonate on a profound emotional degree, too. From the slow-burn, riff-driven grandeur of opener Eldhaf to the glowing embers of luxurious finale Holskefla, Múr is a punishing whirlwind of gorgeous melancholy with melodies like thunderbolts. And when the quintet get straight to the purpose on the snappy, four- minute Messa, they nonetheless conjure soul- stirring multitudes. Greatest exemplified by the episodic, disorientating, elemental dread of the sprawling Heimsslit, this can be a fearsome assertion of intent, and essentially the most unforgettable debut album of 2024. Don’t miss it.
