Norway's avantgarde death/black/doom metal project Felgrave has unleashed the first and, with its 12 minutes shortest track, "Pale Flowers Under An Empty Sky", from its upcoming three-track album, Otherlike Darknesses, due on 25 April via Transcending Obscurity Records.

After dropping a well-received death/doom album five years back, Felgrave has crafted an ingenious album melding influences of doom, black and death metal in a way rarely done before. The one-man band has broken the mould while the album's music flows in an intuitive, undulating, almost whimsical manner, touching upon several styles and effortlessly shape-shifting through them all. The songs are between 12 and 18 minutes long, and each one seems to tell a tale of its own. There is so much going on in each song that it demands repeated listens, which isn't necessarily arduous because of the smooth transitions and the coherency. The sound is strangely all-encompassing - there are acoustic passages with clean vocals and intense and complex parts that wouldn't be out of place on a technical death metal album. It's stuff like this which makes this album fascinating, and what makes it come alive is the passion with which it is meticulously crafted - it seeps through the music - elevating it beyond the ostensible stringing together of disparate parts. Otherlike Darknesses is multifaceted yet has a fairly cohesive sound with exceptional songwriting; albums like these don't come out too often. Link