Oof that’s sad. Enter Besvärjelsen to demonstrate the weight that emotion can add to any sense of ‘heavy.’ The Swedish five-piece return with Till Glömskan Ad Oblivionem (‘to the gloom’ and ‘to oblivion’ in Swedish and Latin, respectively), their third full-length and first through Magnetic Eye Records after making the jump from Blues Funeral — it’s all Jadd Shickler, either way, but I’m pretty sure Magnetic Eye has broader distribution, where Blues Funeral had PostWax — and with it they present 11 cuts that even unto its two comparative bashers “Accelerating Hearts” and the single “Didn’t Come to Party” carries a sense of longing and forlornness that’s enough on “Black Wave” for the guest organ of Pelle Andersson from Lowrider to push it over into being goth.

Coated in echo in songs like “Battles,” “Drifters on a Quiet Stream,” “The Mountain,” “Pulse” and so on, the vocals of Lea Amling Alazam are as atmospheric as ever, but underscored with a feeling of solitude that becomes a unifying thread for the material. Produced by guitarist/backing vocalist Andreas Bajer and new bassist Marcus Lindqvist, with guitarist/vocalist Staffan Vinrot adding violin/fiddle, keys and accordion to arrangements and Erik Bäckwall (who also did the album layout with Björn Olars‘ cover art) holding it all together on drums, the mix and master were once again handled by Karl Daniel Lidén at Tri-Lamb Audio Studios, and honestly I’m not sure why you’d ever go anywhere else if you were Besvärjelsen. The sound is spacious enough to accommodate all that sad, and as you may have inferred from the outset, there’s a lot of sad to accommodate.

Till Glömskan Ad Oblivionem opens with the ticking strings of “The Greatest Sin” and grows more into its scope as it goes, the song acting as a whole album intro in gradually leading the listener into the sprawl, and as Fred Burman of Satan Takes a Holiday adds vocals to the subsequent “Accelerating Hearts” while the keys pound notes like Queens of the Stone Age going with the flow — he’ll be back for “Didn’t Come to Party” as well — even that has some emotional impact owing to the lyrics, and though “Battles” continues the momentum with a brash opening, its verse chug and twisting transitions open to the chorus with a sense of letting go. Since their first full-length, 2018’s Vallmo (review here), and across 2022’s Atlas (review here), the band have worked on refining their songcraft, tightening their material, and Till Glömskan Ad Oblivionem takes this to its furthest degree to-date.

It’s not just that songs are shorter — though it’s that too if you’re going by average — but even in the farthest-reaching pieces like the six-minute “Drifters on a Quiet Stream” or the voice-and-key-led, heart-wrenching, put-you-there-pop-ballad finale “Oblivion,” they don’t lose themselves in the execution. The adherence to structure lends a poppy feel that the band have always toyed with and comes most to fruition, admittedly, in the faster songs, but there at the end as well, while in the slower and more actively melancholy “Counting Flies,” it’s a Katatonia-type interplay; aware of its accessibility but not beholden to it entirely. This strong sense of purpose lets the band become outwardly heavier than they’ve yet been in metallic terms on “The Mountain,” opening and setting in motion a side B that expands on the already significant breadth of the album’s first half, which finishes with “Drifters on a Quiet Stream,” not hopeless, but clinging.

The finer details of the arrangements throughout are worth appreciating. “The Greatest Sin” clues the listener to this with a theremin-ish sound — might be guitar, might be keys, might be a theremin; I don’t know — and unto the fiddle in “Oblivion,” these flashes of nuance not only complement bigger-riff stretches like “The Mountain” or “Pulse” (where it’s a line of organ), but coincide with them as well, by which I mean it doesn’t have to be and isn’t necessarily one or the other. Layering in the vocals is thoughtful, and often when Alazam‘s is on its own in a single apparent layer, it adds to the introspective affect of the record as a whole.

“Oblivion” is an obvious example there, but it’s true even in the most lumbering parts of “Counting Flies” and at other points as well. There are brief divergences, intros and outros, but the only actual “Interlude” follows “Pulse” with 40 seconds of standalone guitar-in-space, and is no less in that spot to preface the rush of “Didn’t Come to Party.” Paired exceedingly well with “Black Wave” just behind it, and a prior-noted companion in tempo to “Accelerating Hearts,” “Didn’t Come to Party,” in fact, did. It nudges up close to party metal and is righteously unrepentant in that, and the dual vocal parts there feed into “Black Wave,” which is also a party, but, again, the goth kind, and so, yes, sad. What is goth if not the sad party?

More surprising, maybe, than the emotive crux in the songs is the metal, but neither is that something entirely new for Besvärjelsen, as Atlas also had its darker and more aggressive undercurnents. With Till Glömskan Ad Oblivionem, this too is refined and put to purposeful use. Certainly the final melodic wash in “Drifters on a Quiet Stream” is an ethereal float, but that song’s midsection and solo part have a crunch that’s likewise threaded into the procession, there at the outset of “Battles” and “The Mountain” and so on, hints (and sometimes more than hints) of black metal amid the doom and atmospheric heavy that forms the foundation of the band’s approach.

This is accounted for in the band’s pedigree as well, with Baier and Vinrot‘s associations with Afgrund, Enemy is Us, and other outfits, but with Till Glömskan Ad Oblivionem, it is a more essential piece of the puzzle with Besvärjelsen too, and becomes a part of the overarching impression made by the album when taken as a whole. That is, incidentally, how one might best experience Till Glömskan Ad Oblivionem, though the accomplishments of their songwriting have never been more palpable than they are in these individual pieces. Either way you go, Till Glömskan Ad Oblivionem portrays Besvärjelsen as keenly aware of who they are musically, sincere-feeling in their expressiveness, and heavier than they’ve yet been on record.

Besvärjelsen, Till Glömskan Ad Oblivionem (2026)

Besvärjelsen, “Drifters on a Quiet Stream” lyric video

Besvärjelsen, “Didn’t Come to Party” official video

Besvärjelsen on Bandcamp

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Besvärjelsen on Facebook

Magnetic Eye Records store

Magnetic Eye Records website

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Tags: Besvärjelsen, Besvärjelsen Till Glömskan Ad Oblivionem, Dalarna, Magnetic Eye Records, Sweden, Till Glömskan Ad Oblivionem

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 9th, 2026 at 6:43 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.