I was both surprised and amused when Natural Snow Buildings released an entire full-length album of all new material to celebrate Record Store Day, as nobody has such a voluminous backlog of material that they can afford to do something like that (well, almost nobody).  Even more unexpectedly, Chants of Niflheim feels like a thematically coherent and deliberately sequenced Natural Snow Buildings album rather than just some collection of curiosities and orphaned songs.  While I wouldn't characterize it as "uniformly brilliant" or "radically different," it is nevertheless a very solid effort that boasts sufficient flashes of greatness to make it unmissable for existing fans.
In Norse mythology, Niflheim (or Niflheimr) is a cold, bleak region in the lowest level of the universe that translates roughly as "home of mists" (it's beneath the third root of Yggdrasil and somewhat in the vicinity of The Shore of Corpses, if you happen to have a map handy).  That mist-filled realm, presumably still ruled by the goddess Hel, is probably also notable for being populated by the dead (with a strong emphasis on souls that died unheroically).  Despite that singularly sad and macabre inspiration, Chants of Niflheim is not a particularly dark album by Natural Snow Buildings' standards.  Nevertheless, the title is still quite appropriate, as this four-song suite sounds hazy, mysterious, pagan, and hallucinatory enough to do justice to its namesake.
I've seen the term "dream-drone" used a few times to describe the recent work of Natural Snow Buildings and that is probably the most succinct way possible to describe the bulk of this release.  Of the four pieces, "Templar's Ritual" stays most closely rooted to that aesthetic, drifting along for 17 delirious minutes of dense, quivering swells and ephemeral, blurred theremin-like tones.  Mehdi and Solange excel at this type of song– when they get it exactly right, it almost feels like the very air is shimmering.  "Templar's Ritual" does not quite hit that level, but it is still pretty likable.  As is "Chants of the Niflheim, Part Two," which takes an unexpectedly warm and blissed-out tone for most of its duration, before ultimately turning somewhat menacing near the end.  Unfortunately, I've heard too many "straight" Natural Snow Buildings drone pieces at this point for them to fully resonate with me anymore.  Those pieces are often great, but I am like a greedy child that ate way too much of his favorite candy.  Fortunately, Mehdi and Solange have also grown quite adept at inventively twisting and subverting that template.
One such piece is the more pagan-influenced opener "Chants of Niflheim, Part One," in which buzzing drones, cymbal washes, and tambourine-heavy percussion evoke a darkly ritualistic atmosphere.  The album's enigmatically titled closer reaches similar highs.  "H. Scudder" most likely takes its inspiration from the late H. Scudder Mekeel, who was one of the first anthropologists to seriously study American Indian culture.  His fascination with the disintegration of indigenous cultures makes him an appropriate choice here.  The piece itself does not offer many clues, sadly, though it does sound like a surreal and eerily beautiful funeral procession march (perhaps for the death of an entire culture).  It also sounds like something of a minor masterpiece, fluidly drifting through several different movements: Mehdi's unsettlingly doubled-vocal folk musings, heavy swells of buzzing drones, wounded-sounding piano cascades, and something that sounds like the most forlorn parade in the world.  Even better, almost every single one of the individual segments is memorably great– it's a absolutely killer song.
Stylistically, Chants of Niflheim falls very much in the vein of the last Natural Snow Buildings album (Waves of the Random Sea).  So much so, in fact, that it feels like its second half (and not like bonus material either).  I wish more bands would blindside me with unexpected addendums to classic, beloved albums like this.  I wonder if that was their conscious plan.  Probably not, but regardless of its intended purpose (the new album, a tease before the "real" new album, a fun surprise, etc), pieces like "H. Scudder" and "Chants of Niflheim, Part One" ensure that this a fairly exciting and noteworthy addition to Mehdi and Solange's massive discography.
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