Hymn, Perish: Rising to Fall
I wouldn’t exactly call Hymn‘s debut album, Perish, hopeful. Released through respected purveyor Svart Records, the Oslo two-piece’s six-songer traffics way more in density, like some kind of module for chest compression accomplished through low end tones, and its forcefully-doomed atmosphere centers around a darkness that goes beyond moody in its presentation to be consuming in a metallic context. To that end, a stretch of blackened blastbeating like that in the penultimate “Spectre” is just one side of the extremity shown throughout, and even in its quiet spaces — the drone intro “Ritual” or post-midsection break in “Rise,” which follows — Perish holds firm to the notion that something is lurking around the next corner or at the start of the next measure.
As a first record, it unquestionably benefits from guitarist/bassist/vocalist Ole Rokseth and drummer Markus Støle‘s prior experience respectively in Buckaduzz and Tombstones, but, departing sound-wise somewhat from both outfits, Hymn approach an impulse toward the vicious from a different angle and push it further. Still, a more than nascent chemistry between Rokseth and Støle is palpable, bolstering the ideas from which Perish‘s 46-minute onslaught is constructed. Further cohesion is shown in conceptual ideas like positioning each of the tracks as a single-word title — “Ritual,” “Rise,” “Serpent,” “Hollow,” “Spectre” and finally, “Perish” — in a manner that both feels minimal and allows the listener to read some narrative progression between them.
While we’re deciding what to call and what not to call Perish, I wouldn’t go with “subtle” either, but that does not at all mean it has nothing to offer but pummel and bleakness. To coincide with the perceptible underlying complexity of its titles, the aesthetic Rokseth and Støle conjure throughout likewise balances between the raw and the full. With a recording, mix and master by Kim Lillestøl at Amper Tone Studio in Oslo, Perish can effectively scathe, as it does in the shouting madness in the second half of “Hollow,” and bask in massive lurch, as “Rise” does in its initial stages following the intro’s ambient tone-setting. The splitting up of “Ritual” and “Rise” at the start of the album is also telling. No doubt the two could’ve easily been presented as one track — “Rise” is already over 12 minutes long, another 1:46 would hardly make or break it — so the decision to push forward with a standalone intro has to be considered a conscious one, and the affect it has is to throw the listener’s expectation off.
So where Perish would otherwise simply be bookended by extended cuts — the finale title-track tops 10 minutes — the structure here becomes something else, something deeper. It is, in fact, a subtle aspect of presentation, but it makes a big difference in how Hymn seem to execute the rest of the record that follows “Ritual,” spanning genres fluidly in “Rise” before digging into what might be considered the meat of the tracklisting in “Serpent,” “Hollow” and “Spectre.” This trio succession — with roughly similar runtimes of 7:32, 7:50 and 6:28, respectively — digs into a core approach for Hymn in which tempos shift easily and Støle and Rokseth feel just as much at home in rolling forth a Neurosis-style swirl/churn on “Serpent” as a post-Conan roll on “Hollow” as a surprising turn into YOBian half-time-drum guitar gallop at the tail end of “Spectre.” Much to their credit, Hymn set their own context into which these elements are factored, and broaden their own sphere rather than simply derive parts of songs from familiar pieces.
That too can be related back to Rokseth and Støle working in other outfits, as well as the four years they’ve operated as Hymn, which is to say if they were brand new to a creative partnership, the balance of Perish might not provide such multifaceted nuance alongside its outward aggression. Nonetheless, that is what it proves out to be, and with “Rise” at the start of the proceedings (roughly), and the guitar-led push of “Perish” at the end, the point is only further driven into the audience’s collective skull. Again, forcefully. As the closer, the title-track feels especially tense in its early thrust and build, but before it’s three minutes into its total 10, the guitar and bass have dropped out and Rokseth is setting a foundation of bass on which the last delve into cacophony will be laid.
This stretch of ambience gives way to roll as they near the halfway point and, over its last several minutes, let “Perish” tear itself apart amid nodding push, feedback and noise — layered shouts and screams only emphasizing the feeling of molten chaos — but even as they seem to relinquish control of the assault, there’s a certain feeling of mastery as Hymn figuratively stand back, cross their arms and look at the devastation their material has wrought. That’s certainly as fitting an end for Perish as any I could think of, and unto their last fadeout, Støle and Rokseth demonstrate clear purpose behind the methods they employ. Perish embarks on a direction distinct in its brutality, and its varied approach bodes well for further trodding along Hymn‘s own path. Maybe it is subtle and hopeful after all, but whatever one ultimately calls it, Perish remains willfully defined by its sonic impact, and that’s plenty.
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Tags: Hymn, Hymn Perish, Norway, Oslo, Perish, Svart Records
