Review: Felgrave – Otherlike Darknesses

April 17, 2025

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Funereal Winds Across The Night Sky

If there could ever be a genre described as a lost city waiting to be plundered for treasure, metal would rank among the many stylistic metropolises world-wide. Behind the prestige and the time-worn pillars of its newest stars and oldest icons alike, a huge part of its identity has been shaped by what were once hidden gems. Now established and over-crowded styles like war metal were once niche, specialized fields few thought would have much appeal outside of the most subterranean-dwelling. The hallmarks of a band like Demilich, once associated with the foggy depths of the genre, have long since filtered into contemporary OSDM and related styles with bands like Tomb Mold and Blood Incantation casually flaunting their influence. The line between what is below and above ground has become far thinner than it was in decades past for better or worse.

This has not stemmed the unseen flow of idiosyncrasy happening beyond the typical hype cycle, even in a time of filesharing, social media, and mass information saturation. Death metal continues to be an evergreen demonstration of this contrast between huge swathes of the genre being highly calcified and locked into specific forms—the “modern,” “old school,” and “dissodeath” territories forming something akin to musical territories or continents. In the spaces between and beyond these gigantic amalgamations of subgenre and style dwell a variety of oddities that occasionally enter the limelight. The last decade or so has seen a number of oddities who do not comfortably fit into the major trends or schools slowly gather yet never truly codify or standardize into a comfortable baseline.

Formed in Norway circa 2020, Felgrave debuted as M.L. Jupe’s solo project. A Waning Light was one of the previously mentioned hidden gems; an oddity and an outlier joining similar outsider aliens such as Cryptic Shift, Kthoniik Cerviiks, Nex Carnis, Plague Pit (RIP), Afterbirth, Fleshvessel, Haunter, Dawn of Nil, Mefitis, Epitaphe, and Nebulos Aetrerum. Their debut album was a kind of death-doom that did not fall into the filthy/rotten/more conventional death metal (Asphyx, Spectral Voice, Disembowelment, etc.) or the melodic/gothic/doom-leaning ones (Old Katatonia, Paradise Lost, Draconian, etc.) but into the previously mentioned unconquered expanses. It was draped in a psychedelic, “astral” haze somewhat reminiscent of fellow Nordic bands like Execration, Temisto, Obliteration, Necrovation, and Morbus Chron. Felgrave’s sound was convergent in its evolution instead of bearing their influence or emerging from the same movement, lacking the semi-old school Autopsy-esque roots of these bands for something hard to grasp.

Rather than a focus on fuzzed-out atmosphere or cavernous churn, Felgrave’s death-doom debut was marked by an unusual focus on dual-guitar interplay supported by elaborate bass harmonies. Songwriting at once prized the amorphous aesthetic qualities of their style yet directed them through harrowing passages of tonal ambiguity into desolate, hopeless melody. It unfolded in layers, intertwining guitar and bass creating swathes of forlorn bitterness arguably progressive in nature while not bearing many of the modern hallmarks or associations of the term. Five years later and ML returns with human whirlwind Robin Stone for session drumming and Convulsing mastermind Brendan Sloan handling the mastering. The hallmarks of ML Jupe’s songwriting remain yet Felgrave have no real interest in repeating what they had already accomplished.

Otherlike Darknesses sets itself apart not just with a lucidly clear production but also being flat out heavier. Unfolding intricacies between both guitars are no longer shrouded behind a somewhat thin production, given a resonant clarity as if playing from two different dimensions. Robin demonstrates a far more violent approach to the kit than ML; withering streams of blasts pockmarked with sudden fills, a perfect accompaniment to the even denser work the strings are putting in. Felgrave would have let the atmosphere from all their constituent parts slowly envelop the listener 5 years ago. Now, even their slower moments are jagged and stabbing, no less harrowing than when the guitar turns into a whispering lunacy of blizzard-force winds full of a plethora of unusual inflections and shapes.

While no longer death-doom, their blackened shift renders abstraction in a concrete manner, contradictory as it sounds. The influences are difficult to pinpoint, enough that I had to ask ML. The Ruins of Beverast influence is still present as on the debut, but the rest is difficult to determine. Perhaps the lunacy of sophomore !T.O.O.H.!, Demilich jigsaw phrasings, Ved Buens Ende’s spaciousness, StarGazer’s bassiness, Timeghoul’s sprawling grandeur—overt references are rare to find. Shostakovich, Schnittke, Scriabin, and Stravinsky are present along with Genesis and Yes but I can’t pretend to be able to pick up where they manifest. More importantly, it’s refreshing to listen to an album where in despite all the ingredients stewed within, very little is easily identifiable.

Even the cover art feels like a reflection of the wider scope. It’s no longer just a walk through a dimly foreboding forest but the mist-shrouded treeline, the fortress that rules over them, and the blinking stars above. Felgrave were a band that while layered with complex harmonies and carefully measured rhythms, never threw too much at the listener. A Waning Light did still require an attentive ear but Otherlike Darknesses does not take the time to gently draw in the listener. Discordant chords ring out from its opening, unfurling patterns harmonized with ghostly synths. Bass seems to amble through at once in its own little world yet somehow fits through every little crevice, as if Robin’s drumming is demolishing entrances for it to snake through.

This is only the first three and half minutes of the 18-minute opener and already it is harsher than the entirety of the debut. This is not even accounting for ML’s vocals focusing on a snarl like a distantly howling wind, blending in just enough to the enshrouding production that it gains a ghostly character; strains of clarity against a backdrop of a raging storm. Singing is partially hidden behind the sonic swirl but the despondent wail fits perfectly, struggling against gale force winds. Tonality thrives in the ambiguity between morbidly melodic and intrusively dissonant with songs playing their conflicting voices against one another. Neither guitar ever entirely plays the same thing. Interplay creates at once wind-scoured vastness and carefully woven patterns of tone and theme and the effect of these semi-melodies is one of near-constant unease. Even the singing adds to this with notes always feeling just a little deliberately off of any comforting intervals.

Ever-winding while assembling itself through a plethora of themes, Felgrave offers little in the way of comfortable respite or getting too comfortable with a particular riff. Otherlike Darknesses may be the opposite of hooky, but ML knows a particularly striking pattern or theme serves as well as a branching off point. No stone is left unturned and recurring themes are explored or otherwise taken to visceral, harrowing conclusions. It’s very easy to get lost in just the incessantly layered interaction; melody morphing into dissonance into jarring clean breaks into variation of theme into the sink and the entire kitchen. It almost feels arbitrary at a glance but there are themes continually developed throughout its runtime. Felgrave will introduce one as part of a polyphony, deviate away for a while, then converge back upon it as it takes the centre stage, rejoining it as part of a new harmony that serves as an anchor leading to further thematic growth.

Otherlike Darknesses focuses on bigger picture structure but part of that is ensuring each of the three songs have their individual moments sweeping and cinematic in nature. Its songwriting is one of its strengths even if its immense complexity doesn’t immediately make that clear. The opener uses a particular arpeggio from the first half in its second to lead into two constantly climbing upper register guitar lines. Weaving in and out of one another and refusing to cleanly resolve, it results in a lengthy section of near-nauseating anxiety. Additional clean guitar and ML’s desperately sung wails cause it to border on overwhelming the song in one of the album’s most densely layered sections. This goes on for well over three minutes before cutting into a thankfully less claustrophobic midtempo segment punctuated with haunting synth notes helping to guide the way through.

The second half of “Winds Batter My Keep” features a steadily ascending guitar line that becomes near unbearably anxiety-inducing the longer it goes. Eventually the singing harmonizes with a King Crimson-like clean guitar accompaniment then an additional arpeggio-sounding pattern, almost threatening to overwhelm the remaining runtime. “Pale Flowers Under An Empty Sky” develops clean guitar melodies juxtaposed against the escalating intensity of its vicious blast-beat portions, both gradually taking on increasingly intricate and unhinged dual-guitar complexity. It’s by far the most aggressive song here, stopping momentarily to let singing and clean guitars emerge, yet rather than a reprieve, they too become progressively eerier.

The title cut has a number of particularly noteworthy clean breaks with the second half possessing a particularly eerie one; a meditative bass melody around which twitches and sings a discordant clean guitar theme, almost as if mocking its lower-register counterpart in whispers. Ending the album is the entropic race between two guitars, abruptly breaking down into increasingly abstract and spacious chords as if the track is gradually leaving the corporeal realm. Bass rises and falls beneath the siren-call of a strange wailing pattern, almost catchy if not for how sickeningly nauseating it comes off as in Otherlike Darknessess’ final moments. The album begins ruthlessly and makes barely any concessions towards accessibility and its sudden, sharp end ties things up as harshly as they began. Picking up the pieces in its wake will take some time.

This is not a death metal album for everyone. So much of the genre today has condensed into schools so heavily populated yet struggling to find a sense of adventure again. Even the forays of the so-called dissodeath movement were no less a victim to this tendency; subgenres and styles that atrophied and narrowed to represent the aesthetic dressings of their namesakes at the expense of everything else. Otherlike Darknesses rejects this and gladly reveals more of ML’s particular vision for death metal. It comes from a wildly eclectic background yet so little of the specifics of its influences matter. Every minute is so specifically written that it becomes moreso about Mason’s eccentricities, at once abstract in origin yet deliberate in song construction. It feels as if it’s from a future emergent on the horizon, somewhere beyond the ossified city walls of much of death metal where a wilderness of possibility awaits. It’s experimental in this way, avant-garde some might say, indulging in black/death barbarity from an otherworldly perspective, finding few equivalents past and present.

I would normally go on about its shortcomings; maybe one more song would be nice, even a smaller interlude with how tantalizing the non-metal portions of it are. Maybe some more synths here and there with how well they add to its haunted atmosphere. These aren’t really even criticisms and I’m not sure if they would change much for a third album which I don’t think would even be a continuation of this. Felgrave have accomplished the rocky task of changing one’s sound drastically yet retaining a lot of the key components that originally made it stick out so much. The strings, the tonality, the musicianship and other aesthetic components are perfected and the songs they are placed within don’t just aim higher but hit well past the mark. With none to answer to beyond himself and Robin’s immense drumming capability (you should hear him do folk music), Felgrave remain triumphant in the wilderness beyond the bounds of mainstream genre norms and much of its underground as well.