MØL’s debut album, JORD, arrived in 2018 with such disarming force that it threatened to depose Deafheaven and Alcest as metal’s big dreamers. Although the Aarhus quintet had two EPs under their belt, JORD’s interior landscapes seemed immaculate, spectral guitars and savage metal chops gripped by the fleeting nature of our existence. Now backed by heavyweight label Nuclear Blast, expectation rides high on their second album. What we find is a band changed. On the surface, Diorama is more brutal than its predecessor. Glacial shoegazing is violently cast aside on Serf as MØL mine a seam of blackest metal. Yet peer into the darkness and you will find light poking through the blastbeats. Tvesind’s waspish guitar drills shift into major key anthemics, while Photophobic’s icy onslaugh...