Gaahls Wyrd | Braiding The Stories | Season Of Mist

 

Gaahls Wyrd emerged in the wake of frontman Gaahl's departure from God Seed, bringing together his vision under a banner both tethered to black metal tradition and restlessly experimental. Formed in Norway in 2015, the band’s nucleus comprises Gaahl (vocals), Lust Kilman (guitar), Spektre (drums), and Nekroman (bass), all veterans of Norway’s diverse extreme music ecosystem. Their 2019 debut, "GastiR – Ghosts Invited," introduced their penchant for slow-burning ritualism, while the 2021 mini-album "The Humming Mountain" expanded on that with atmospheric breadth. Over time, Gaahls Wyrd have distanced themselves from genre conventions, presenting a spectral world that fuses elements of metal, ambient, gothic rock, and introspective songwriting into a deeply personal tapestry of sound and concept.

"Braiding The Stories" is the band’s most abstract and enveloping work to date. From the first flicker of "The Dream" to the twilight drift of "Flowing Starlight", Gaahls Wyrd shapes a meditative sonic landscape where form often dissolves into mood and voice becomes less a delivery system for lyrics than an instrument of presence and atmosphere.

There is a fluidity throughout the album that leans into a dream logic, as mentioned by Gaahl himself. Tracks do not explode or resolve as much as they evolve in subtle undulations, rising and falling like currents in a metaphysical tide. The instrumentation—guided by Lust Kilman—avoids overstatement. Guitars shimmer, pulse, and spiral with a distinctly ‘80s/‘90s gothic rock influence but never stay long enough in any one place to pin them down. His solos drift like memory fragments, sometimes untethered and at other times woven directly into the emotional architecture of the song.

Spektre and Nekroman offer support that feels deeply embedded in the album’s core energy, more concerned with sustaining emotional and rhythmic tension than asserting heaviness or aggression. The presence of interludes ("Voices In My Head," "Through The Veil") further blurs the lines between traditional track sequencing and cinematic movement.

Gaahl, ever the enigmatic figure, exercises remarkable vocal control throughout the album. He employs his range in service of the atmosphere rather than assertion—crooning, speaking, whispering, and chanting—allowing the lyrics to dissolve into the instrumentation or cut through it with deliberate, haunting phrasing. His approach feels less like performance and more like invocation. The lyrical content, shaped around subconscious states and dream transition, plays perfectly into this.

The production, overseen again by Iver Sandøy, is immersive. The choices made in mix and dynamics create a breathing sonic environment where silence is just as vital as sound. The spaces between notes and rhythms carry as much emotional weight as the climaxes. Rather than aiming for immediacy or force, the mix invites prolonged listening. The album's flow is uninterrupted, its sequence constructed not for individual song impact, but for total, uninterrupted immersion.

"Braiding The Stories" moves away from the tactile aggression of black metal and instead gestures toward an inward, spectral terrain. It is neither bound by tradition nor obsessed with disavowing it—it simply refuses categorization altogether. It is quiet yet expansive, solemn yet luminous. Rather than dramatizing emotion, it reflects it.

Score: 8.2