YMIR – ymir – SILVER LP

Black Metal – Silver version – Werewolf Records

From the past comes the storms…of icy, grandiose, paradigmatically Finnish black metal, bearing the no-bullshit title of Ymir. As can be expected, YMIR’s long-brewing debut album is both a summation of their sparse but no-less-considerable past and a strident extension into both present and future. Never before have the band sounded so invigorated, so robust and roiling in their sweepingly sumptuous ruminations; the aim may be for mystical black metal of a most mid-’90s vintage, but the palpable physicality present here puts Ymir in rarefied company, whether it’s past or especially present. Suitably, YMIR create epic screeds which open portals of the imagination and ancient consciousness alike, reverent to the old ways of noble black metal faith but by no means tethered to reductive expression: simply put, YMIR are a black metal band and Ymir is a black metal record, but their collective scope is boundless, brave, and breathing deeply of an essence few are able to grasp in the nowadays scene.