Sunken – Departure (2017)

Hailing from Denmark, today we have Sunken and their killer debut release “Departure”. Delivering over 50 minutes of heavily atmospheric Black Metal, this band creates a very powerful and melancholic atmosphere that will enshroud you with its misery. Focusing on crafting smarter tracks, this release feels and sounds a lot different than your run-of-the-mill Atmospheric BM outfit.

After the warm-up instrumental opening, the band opens this release with the full-blast onslaught of the first few minutes of “Void”. This song slowly mellows out and leads way to brilliant atmospheric passages with a prominent bass guitar line and catchy percussions. The album title track comes at us with another brilliant mixture of melancholy with devilish intensity with harsh vocals, furiously paced sections, and jazzy atmospheric passages.

The musical journey continues with the very aggressive “Departure”, an 11-minute track that brilliantly manages to mix unrelentless harsh vocals and dreamy guitars into a very cohesive and emotive piece. The band’s ability to create unique atmospheric BM songs is their main strength, as they tracks in this release are very good and yet don’t sound like all the other outfits playing this genre.

Closing with our favorite “In the Cold Embrace of the Waves”, we are left with a brilliant traditional BM-esque piece that is both sinister and highly contrasting. If you are a fan of Atmospheric Black Metal and are tired of more of the same, check out Sunken’s debut release “Departure”. We guarantee that you will be amused by how the band mixes their harsh and atmospheric elements in very unique and unconventional ways.

Label: Triton's Orbit / Nordavind Records

Release: May 26th, 2017

Genre: Atmospheric Black Metal

Country: Denmark