Description
Released in 1996 on Ildjarn’s own Norse League Productions label, “Strength and Anger” was his final black metal release before he quit recording and eventually dropped out of the scene altogether. It was Ildjarn’s third solo album that year, following closely behind “Forest Poetry” and “Landscapes,” and it is inarguably the most experimental of his three full-length black metal albums. It explodes in a fit of wrath and rage entitled “Strength and Anger,” followed by 14 additional eponymous installments of the “Strength and Anger” song cycle, of which nine are instrumental. In some ways, there is added complexity to the array of sounds Ildjarn draws from. His chord progressions and riffs exhibit greater complexity than some of his prior recordings, and there’s more variation in the production. Some of the songs are so blown out with 4 track distortion that the sound dissolves into fragments of noise that then somehow coalesce into a cognizable form. Ildjarn’s penchant for militant repetition is on full display on “Strength and Anger,” as many of the songs produce a hypnotic effect as pronounced as his ambient works, despite the violence of their sound. Following the conclusion of the 15 “Strength and Anger” tracks, the second half of the album consists of two approximately 15-minute collages of minimalist musique concrète and dark ambient called “Black Anger – Hate Meditation 1” and “Midnight Strength – Hate Meditation 2,” bisected by a stomping two-minute black metal instrumental called “Interchange.” Unlike Ildjarn’s other non-metal recordings, “Landscapes” and the Hardangervidda albums he recorded with Nidhogg, the “Hate Meditation” recordings do not call to mind majestic Norwegian vistas. They offer instead a survey of the bleak and misanthropic terrain of Ildjarn’s inner landscape.
