Lumsk – "Fremmede Toner"
Imaginations from the other side
Norway's Lumsk is yet another group that I haven't followed for the last 16 years. However, they haven't released any new albums in that period, so I don't feel quite as guilty in this case.
It seemed a lot of people, at least in my circle of mellow metalheads, didn't quite get along with Lumsk's latest long-player, "Det Vilde Kor" ('07), which, then, I let be. Allegedly, the band went in a more progressive direction. And this is also the case on "Fremmede Toner". However, this does not make the music any worse. In fact, quite the contrary.
The concept behind "Fremmede Toner" ("Foreign Notes") is musical interpretations of six poems by Norwegian poet André Bjerke and six translations thereof by such literary celebs as Goethe, Swinburne, and even Nietzsche. The album's side 1 contains the Norwegian interpretations; side 2 the German and English ones.
In general, side 1 is a bit softer and side 2 a bit harder. But other than that, the only major distinction is the difference in language. Because the progressive element is dominant throughout, Lumsk often sounding more like Porcupine Tree or Riverside than like a band who used to write songs about trolls and viking-age kingslayers.
... And that's okay. Because while we're not getting a new "Åsmund Fregdegjevar" ('03) or "Troll" ('05) here, we're getting an album that's eclectic, sonorous, and challenging. New female vocalist Mari Klingen impresses from the beginning as she lifts "Det Døde Barn" from sparse, piano-based, melancholic neo-rock to a dominating, higher level of intensity, heaviness, and details. Her technique is – probably quite literally – breathtaking. And even though the much-added heaviness on its side 2 equivalent "Das Tode Kind" is welcome, the Norwegian original ends up winning by a margin, exactly due to that meticulous, proggy build-up.
While we're not getting a new "Åsmund Fregdegjevar" ('03) or "Troll" ('05) here, we're getting an album that's eclectic, sonorous, and challenging.
The same thing goes for side 1's "En Harmoni" compared to its English side 2 equivalent "A Match". The latter does feature a cool Jethro Tull style transverse flute and a downright metal axe chop coda, low second step and all. But the former is much more elegant and diverse, going from folky violins over a heavy mid-section with an almost surf guitar-sounding theme to a major-key plateau reminiscent of Opeth's "Hessian Peel" from "Watershed" ('08).
Even though especially the vocals and drums are masterful, the latter often being polyrhythmic and playing uneven meters, the whole progressive aspect predominantly consists in these many different song sections. And it gets hard to maintain focus. Not because things get too complex, which they otherwise tend to do in the genre, but because a lot of the sections are about simply sounding different than the previous one, without necessarily having any stand-out themes, hooks, or gimmicks.
One stand-out is "Fiolen", which, in its cutesy major-key melody over a cutesy major-key piano cadence just manages to get a bit too cutesy before an increasing synth and a tonic minor variation hijacks it into unknown territory. Another stand-out is the synth lead in "Abschied" which sounds like Amorphis on "Elegy" ('96) – a 100% positive trait in my world.
The best song would have to be the slow, somber "Dagen Er Endt", its sad melody and background drone suddenly sliding into grand power chords and a lead synth adding just a touch of major-key deliverance. Fucking beautiful.
And this is how Lumsk end up winning here. Because while the many intangible elements do make the album hard to fully embrace, the band's sense of fluent dynamics, tonal variation, and just plain applied songwriting tools collectively make "Fremmede Toner" the most interesting album of 2023 so far. Not the best one, and certainly not the catchiest one, but that's probably not the point, either. We have a worthy comeback here, songs about trolls or not.
Rating: 4.5 out of 6
Genre: Progressive rock / folk / metal
Release date: 5/5/2023
Label: Dark Essence Records
Producer: Rhys Marsh + Arnstein Fossvik