While Closed City and their self-titled debut album may get categorised as a metal album don’t be fooled, this isn’t a headbanging good time for the battle vest wearing Bloodstock crowd. Despite the most fleeting crossover with acts like Sunn O))) or Hexvessel, composer Micheal Cloud Duguay and songwriter Mathias Kom incorporate the bleak feel of black metal and drone into a sonic experience that will feel alien to most metalheads, melding the desolate feel of these heavier genres with the intensity and drama of brass driven classical music.
The album’s short introductory track ‘City’ acts as a powerful deterrent to those looking for anything other than a bleak and thematically dense sonic experience. Rather than setting the atmosphere with tremolo picked guitars recorded in a grimy Norwegian basement, ‘City’ feels more like the soundtrack to a Coen brothers film set in the Arctic circle, heavy on the low brass and gloomy piano, tiptoeing carefully through labyrinthine melodies. While Closed City may have elements of heavier genres intertwined through its passages, this opening track sets the album up as a deep and fascinating experience unlike anything seen between the pages of Kerrang.
“While Closed City may have elements of heavier genres intertwined through its passages, this opening track sets the album up as a deep and fascinating experience unlike anything seen between the pages of Kerrang.”
As Closed City unravels, new textures and sounds join the sonic maelstrom, transforming the landscape into a desolate tundra of competing brass, guitars and percussion. While the track ‘Old Fire’ is probably the closest the album comes to traditional “metal”, with feedback-driven guitars and rapid percussion approaching blast beat territory, it’s also the album’s longest and most ambitious piece, clocking in at almost eight minutes of whispered vocals, disorienting blasts of orchestral brass and thunderous drums. It’s impressive to hear orchestral and heavy elements mixed in a way that feels more developed than the melodramatic strings of acts like Nightwish, evoking a dark and subtle atmosphere rather than theatrical pomp.
Although Kom’s vocals are relatively understated throughout there are a select few moments that highlight his voice against the backdrop of orchestral harmonies, distorted guitars and electronic noise all vying for dominance in the swirling sonic wilderness. The track ‘Ice Fog-No Exit’ uses its many sonic layers as a fittingly bleak soundtrack for Kom’s vocals which abruptly jump from an enchanting and straightforward folk melody to a deeper, more aggressive rhythmic spoken word. Though a majority of the album is strictly instrumental, these sparse vocals bring a new dimension to the feeling of isolation that Closed City aim to convey throughout their debut album.
Despite a relatively short half an hour runtime Closed City meets its lofty ambitions, dragging the listener into the cold isolation of the locked-down cold war era settlements it draws inspiration from through disorienting orchestral brass clashing with subtle electronic noise and distorted, droning guitars. While hardly a radio-friendly project, Closed City manages to be engrossing and intriguing in ways few acts can.