It’s been two years since Norway’s own AVKRVST had unleashed their 2023 debut album The Approbation on the InsideOut label. This is a band that took admiration of progressive metal from the realms of Porcupine Tree, Opeth, Mew, and King Crimson to a whole other level of the genre that keeps the fires burning, more than ever. That and their follow-up album Waving at the Sky, a conceptual story, inspired by a tragic family story with dire consequences in rural Norway.
The album cover does bear some striking resemblance to the movie poster of 2017’s psychological horror gem, Mother directed by Darren Aronofsky, starring Jennifer Lawrence, Ed Harris, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Javier Barden. This album isn’t for the faint of heart, this is an album that takes you right to the heart of the tragedy that’s about to unfold. And once you realize what is going on, there’s no turning back.
You have the clock-ticking effect Utby does on his drum kit, followed by an ominous guitar introduction set to the pressure cooker that’s about to boil over behind ‘Conflating Memories’. You feel as if Simon Bergseth is telling the families to look into the hallway of mirrors to confront their demons and reveal the damage they’ve done to themselves.
As soon the keyboards kick in with its nod to Air’s score to The Virgin Suicides, all bets are off. I was completely spellbound where the band paid homage to the French duo for a brief moment before walking into the flute improv of Crimson’s Lizard suite into the fold. How intense can you get by setting the temperatures up to a boiling level? The result? A hypnotic arrangement the band dive into.
Once we get into the tidal-waving effects for the ‘Ghosts of Yesteryear’, the nods to The Mars Volta goes into a ramming speed arrangement that fires all cylinders. The pounding bass, guitar riffs, exploding drum work, this isn’t your daddy’s prog-rock band, folks!
The mellotronic intro behind the ‘Preceding’ puts all the cards into place with this unexpected eruption between guitar and bass riffs, followed by drums, doing this stop-and-go motif which almost speaks of Rush’s Moving Pictures-era but adding the pouncing crunch from the fuzztone sound on the bass Aadland tackles. He wants to push towards that envelope as hard as he can before the uplifting momentum the band walk into, by entering into this abandoned house that has collected dust for ages.
You don’t know what’s about to happen. But as it segues into ‘The Trauma’, all bets are off. Believe me, this is AVKRVST’s approach to write an alternate soundtrack for the psychological horror 2017 gem Mother! And it gets the temperature levels, boiling up to set up the nightmare that’s about to unfold. You can imagine the band were watching this film for inspiration during the recording sessions on their second album to get an idea of the story.
And to be allowed to bring in Haken’s Ross Jennings into the forefront by bringing in this galloping arrangement behind ‘The Malevolent’, the fiery, turned unexpected changes on this song becomes a nightmarish sequence by walking towards the midnight sun. So, it is great to see this Norwegian band making more darker and heavier themes to continue with the subject matter and see what will happen in the years to come.
