Walk Through Fire Premiere “Fall I Glömska”; Till Aska Due April 12
Swedish gruel-sludgers Walk Through Fire will self-release Till Aska on April 12. And, I mean, you can like the record if you want, but they’re not gonna take it easy on you. By design, Till Aska is extreme in sound and intense of purpose, with quiet stretches throughout like the intro to its opening title-track (and thus the record as a whole) and the first-five-minutes dirge reply of the finale “Rekviem” that are creepier than they are bludgeoning, but still carry a violent threat. With Andreas Olsson‘s low end punching you repeatedly about the head as the four-piece slog through churning wretched miseries made all the more monolithic by virtue of the lyrics being in Swedish — that is, the language barrier becomes part of the heavy — and delivered at the fore of the mix in harsh, mid-range, nodule-forming post-hardcore barks.
I’ll spare you the Ingmar Bergman comparisons, but yes, Till Aska‘s 53-minute/five-song stretch is plodding of tempo and seems to drain all the color from the world surrounding. It is either the band’s fourth or fifth album, depending on whom you ask, and follows the live-recorded 2020 outing Vår Avgrund, which, guess what, was also really, really fucking heavy and miserable, with longer songs and more noise. Lineup changes between the two releases have seen the band go from two guitars to just that of Ufuk Demir — who’s also the one self-flagellating those vocals — and brought Esaias Järnegard in on organ, while Olsson and drummer Juliusz Chmielewski give shape to the sad motion of the down, down, downer riffs in “Fall I Glömska” as the band conjure visions of being buried alive after tree roots pull you under the dirt by your ankles.
With the guitar so densely distorted, the bass 
chucking concrete throughout most of the proceedings and Demir‘s unipolar viciousness as a defining element, there are times like in the later reaches of centerpiece/shortest-track “Genom Sår” where Järnegard‘s organ is the only thing coming close to some kind of melody, and as that takes the form of sad notes floating and drawn out over the measures, even the idea of hope seems distant. They very clearly made it to be unsettling, and it is.
Till Aska is my first experience with Walk Through Fire — though they appeared here when announced for Desertfest London 2015, then supporting 2014’s Hope is Misery and sharing a stage with (among others) Noothgrush, which fits — and the spaces they leave open in the material, whether loud or subdued as they are building into the lurch of “Självförintelse,” are like traps for the listener. Some bands hook you with catchy choruses and uptempo movement, etc. Walk Through Fire, with an abiding bleakness of atmosphere and roiling aggression, feels as it plays out like you’re sinking deeper. The crash and feedback and scathe of “Självförintelse” gives way shortly before the nine-minute mark to a drone that’s not actually a sample of a cardiac monitor flatlining, but is evocative of one all the same, and it’s from there that “Rekviem” begins its instrumental course, mournful and disdaining.
Yeah, I was being glib above with ‘you can like it if you want,’ blah blah, but the truth is that Till Aska comes across as being precisely what Walk Through Fire wanted to make it, even unto the way the songs are laid out with the two longest pieces bookending and the others working toward the shortest in the middle. The seething, low, slow grind feels born of sludge but is darker, less punk and leant an almost gothic presence at times by the organ, and like a lot of extreme music across a spectrum of microgenres heavy or not, it’s not the kind of fare every listener is going to call accessible. That’s probably putting it mildly. “Resonates omnidirectional disgust” might be a better way to phrase.
But you know, sometimes that’s just what you need.
“Fall I Glömska” premieres below, followed by the preorder link and more info from the PR wire:
Walk Through Fire on “Fall I Glömska”:
This song was written on a piano and had the working title Nortt (referring to the Danish artist). The lyrics are a mantra repeating, “fall i glömska, fall isär, fall på plats” — “fall into oblivion, fall apart, fall into place.”
Walk Through Fire – Till Aska
Out on April 12, 2024 | Pre-order: https://walkthroughfire.bandcamp.com/album/till-aska
The Swedish avant-garde doom/sludge stalwarts Walk Through Fire are releasing their fourth full-length Till Aska on April 12, 2024. A monolithic portrayal of loss and grief, Till Aska – “To Ashes” in English – will first debut only on digital formats and streaming platforms. While physical releases aren’t currently planned, the band are open to label collaborations should the opportunity arise.
Representing the finest edge that their respective genres can offer on a global scale, Walk Through Fire has been steadily cementing themselves as a notable phenomenon over the past seventeen years. Blending down-tuned oppressive soundscapes with contemporary and classical music, the sonically unrelenting act has crafted a unique appearance for itself by means of uncompromisingly expanding the perimeters found in the more common understanding of what heavy music can be, resulting in an annihilating force to be reckoned with. Whether the black metal tendencies of their debut Furthest From Heaven or the dirges for life tones of Vår Avgrund, Walk Through Fire’s musical focal point has always been to become an aural catharsis – Till Aska being perhaps the most potent and poignant example of reaching that exact state.
From the most profound hellish depths to the soaring heights, the five tracks of Till Aska contain the very essence of Walk Through Fire while stretching the spectrum wider than ever before. The over fifty-minute endeavour is equally captivating as it is difficult, guaranteeing an immersive and rich experience to anyone willing to place themselves under its crushing weight. Walk Through Fire are no strangers to the transcendence of dread and its multiple manifestations, and while Till Aska crawls around its listener’s spine as a fiery serpent, it also offers resolve and spiritual consummation unlike ever heard before.
Walk Through Fire – Till Aska
1. Till aska (11:39)
2. Fall i glömska (10:50)
3. Genom sår (7:24)
4. Självförintelse (11:43)
5. Rekviem (12:09)
Recorded, mixed and mastered by Linus Andersson at Elementstudio, Gothenburg
Original artwork Frau mit totem kind (1903) by Käthe Kollwitz
Ufuk Demir — Guitars & Vocals
Andreas Olsson — Bass
Juliusz Chmielewski — Drums
Esaias Järnegard — Organ
