Band's List Stoner Doom The Flight Of Sleipnir Wisdom Calls for Sacrifice

Review: “THE FLIGHT OF SLEIPNIR – Wisdom Calls for Sacrifice

“Wisdom Calls for Sacrifice” marks the first release of The Flight of Sleipnir, an outfit formed in 2007 by Clayton Cushman and David Csisely, both otherwise active in Black metal outfit Acheronian Dirge, and both former members of Throcult. As so often is the case with side projects in metal, the idea was born out of the feeling that their main outfit was to limited to express all their ideas in music.
The whole idea of The Flight of Sleipnir was exploring a sound and especially lyrics closer to Northern mythology. From this, their first release, on, this would be the distinctive feature of the outfit.
Finding a record company for this EP length release proved not possible, so the album was selfreleased by the band members. Although from their very first beginning on the band has been a two person outfit and still is, it that hasn’t stopped them from playing live together with guest musicians. Already the promotion for this maiden release has been accompanied by rather intensive life performances..


SEEKING FOR AN OWN SOUND

Some have said that “Wisdom Calls for Sacrifice” is nothing special yet, and mainly marks an exploration tour through different musical styles. In this in fact I have to agree, as the consistency which later would mark their first full-length release, is still grossly lacking. On the other hand the lyrical concept was already determined on and has little changed over time, rather dealing with more general atmosphere settings of the old Nordic world, instead of going deep into the meaning of separate pieces of the mythology..


SLEEVE DESIGN

If this album is outstanding in one thing, than it is certainly its sleeve design, elaborating on the habits of the holy man of old, (We find this phenomenon as well in Odinism as in various branches of Eurasian Shamanism), of somewhere in their lifelong search for wisdom taking one of their eyes in order “to see with greater clearness”, or in more understandable explanation; Becoming more like the supreme god (Odinism), or like father Sun, (Shamanism). Front of the sleeve shows and old holy man, having just performed the act and still profusely bleeding from it. This all towards a backdrop of the boreal forest. Well done, great piece of art!

TRACK 1; THE DECEIVER, THE BLIND AND THE BELOVED.

The search for the right sound becomes most evident from this whole 5.30 long track. The entire style of the song is rather atmospheric, but within this limitation several sidesteps into various styles are made. The first part, carrying the vocals of the song shows a lot of standard rock influence and the vocals are of a very clear, almost cheerful, nature, rare to pagan folk metal. Especially the chorus of the song is probably not much to the taste of a lot of lovers of the genre.



Having gone through the rather short vocal part, the track however becomes quickly very much contemplating, but changing rhythms to much for my feeling, carrying such bewildering elements as a part with a Spanish guitar like solo. Towards the end of the song it becomes a lengthy lamenting chant without any recognizable lyrics. Still I must say that this is the part where you can actually feel the spirit of the Nordic the best and in that it is certainly not bad although maybe somewhat monotonous and flat.

TRACK 2; AT THE ROOT OF THE ASH TREE.

This longer, 7.35, song starts out lots better, after a very short acoustic intro immediately in a slow going very heavy sound, with vocals that reminds one strongly of black metal, which might not be so surprising, knowing the background of the two band members.
After more then two minutes the songs takes back volume and develops into a constantly building up guitar solo, and a solid bedding of heavy drum and bass work. This might not be at all to the liking of those who had hoped for 7 minutes of black metal noise, but it gives sophistication to the song, and the solo build up to a second and equally heavy vocal part.
The last part of the song elaborates again on the guitar soloing piece which becomes rather strung out here. Might have not been a good idea to add this in order to lengthen the song, but still, in my opinion it is the best of the four pieces on this EP.

TRACK 3; THRYMS BANE.

With only 4.25 the shortest of the album, beginning with chant like vocals, which indeed strongly induses feelings of the northern darkness. The whole is interspersed by heavier, again somewhat black metal like chorus vocals followed by short guitar solo’s before returning to the main lyrical parts.
Unfortunately in the latter part of the song an abrupt change is made to a speedy, thrash metal like part which only proves that neither trash nor to speedy play is among the band’s real talents. Also they have great trouble in going from there into the final chorus part. To much experimenting and thus falling into their own trap!

TRACK 4; ECHOES, (Pink Floyd cover)

If one wasn’t convinced enough that on this release we still deal with a band looking for an own sound, this song convinces you double quick. After less than half a minute you get the feeling, “But isn’t this……..Yes……..Yes, indeed this is a Pink Floyd cover” about the last you would expect on a recording like this but indeed it is true. A friend of mine who doesn’t like the band had the following explanation: “Well, after three miscarries they knew of no other way to fill the rest of the EP without getting a real bloody nose from the critics”
That is however unfair and disrespectful, if I judge them fairly for this lengthy, over 16 minute, track, I can only say that they perform the cover very well, giving proof of high technical skills. For the first half of the song they almost exactly follow the Pink Floyd version and it is sometimes hard to even recognize it is not the original, but that alone IS proof of technical skill as no-one can pretend that the song is easy to play.
Having made themselves comfortable with the song they dare to stray somewhat further apart from the original, using much more distortion on the guitars and applying somewhat more aggressive drums. Towards the end of the song, where the spacier part is found, they once more come closer to the original, but make sure there at least is a distinction. As the final part of Echoes is indeed a repeat of the first one, they do not dare to venture into further experiment any more, which could have very well stained the entire effort

CONCLUSION

No, you won’t hear me say this is a sensational or great album, but it is also not my habit to stamp totally into the ground the first efforts of a starting outfit, so from me they still get 15/20 for it.
Those who know the follow up full length album of The Flight of Sleipnir will probably agree with me that this EP certainly served its goal as an exercise in finding a distinctive own sound for the band.

Gletscherwolf, 18 September 2010
.