MØL – ‘Diorama’

At this point, mixing shoegaze / post-rock with black metal isn’t exactly breaking ground. The most casual fans of either genre know of bands like Deafheaven and Alcest, but even those titans have never really managed to capture the expansive beauty of the former without at least slightly compromising the unhinged intensity of the latter. In 2018, Denmark’s MØL released ‘Jord’, an incredibly promising debut that managed to channel both aspects of the sound almost perfectly, thanks in no small part to the crystal clear production job and Kim Song Sternkopf’s utterly monstrous vocal performance. ‘Jord’ took what had historically been a genre rooted in a low-fi world and made it sound slick and modern, without losing an ounce of atmosphere or emotional heft. After such a strong debut album, a...