Artist: Jzovce
Title: Lesy
Type: Album
Label: Digital / Distant Voices
I think this review needs to be filed under “why do I attempt things like this” as not only is it the second part of a trilogy I have yet to hear the first part of, but the nature of it renders my usual ‘style’ of reviewing pretty difficult to adapt and still explain why I like this so much.
Jzovce is a French black metal project of T. and strangely appropriately for the album, I have no memory of how I got here…. It is an album split into eight parts and is a raw, solemn black metal album which approaches the subject of woods and forests and the atmosphere they can press down upon the solitary wanderer. The phrase the ‘unending and repetitive beauty’ struck me hard though and so here I am, alone.
It begins slowly, warily even, as though this is the step over the threshold and the feeling of steps stretching inwards and the path back closing and vanishing into the trees. Something about the simple, lo-fi sound and echoing, almost whispered harsh vocals gives a sense of disorientation and when the speed picks up there might be expected to be a moment of panic, but that is not the case; here it somehow speaks to me more of the realisation of the vast but dense world around you. There is life but in so much shadow, so much stillness it is hard to perceive. You spin and turn and all that is achieved is that there is no direction to follow.
As you fall deeper into this album it is a strange experience. There is a similarity to the passages as there is with the forest, but because of that it is the differences which suddenly appear and blossom before you. Darkness begins to have shades trees have differing shapes and the music. A melody in the third passage leads you on a different path and a moment of acoustic guitar against the buzzing opens up a brief clearing before you are engulfed once more. The fourth passage is a thin, eerie tune that passes you as you explore and simply fades into the distance. And acoustic passage takes over and yet this simply seems to plunge me further into the depths of the woods as though for a couple of minutes even the sounds vanish. Crows call. Riffs tunnel onwards between the branches and trunks and the darkness surges in.
It is a bewildering, bleak and oppressive album. It uses repetition well to paint the ever darkening world in which you find yourself utterly lost, and it uses shifts in tempo and riff and unexpected moments of melody to disorientate and cause a sudden surge of apprehension. How raw black metal can create a sense of silence is just part of the magic that Jzovce has mastery of.
It might not be the easiest of listens but honestly, just leaning back, closing my eyes and letting this cover me with his oppressive, solitary world was a truly mesmerising experience.
I suppose I better see what part one was like now eh?
But in the mean time, dive into this and don’t blame me if the way out is…. difficult.
Gizmo
Walking The Liminal Space 