The Third and the Mortal are one of the most unique bands to have emerged from the Scandinavian melodic doom metal cauldron in the 1990s. After a couple of properly metal albums, the Norwegians started experimenting with all sorts of sounds and styles of music, from trip-hop to atmospheric rock, to jazz, to darkwave to acoustic music. Labels such as “avant-garde” and “progressive” are often used liberally, but have never been more appropriate to describe a band than in the case of The Third and the Mortal. Released in 2002, Memoirs is the band’s last full-length album to date. It finds the band in full-on experimental mode, merging trip-hop and electronica-infused atmospheric rock with dark/gothic rock elements. The resulting 50 minutes of music will appeal to fans of bands like The Gathering, (early) Antimatter, Ulver, and more generally to metalheads unafraid to experiment with forms of dark music that fall outside the aesthetics of heavy metal, narrowly-defined.
The album is roughly split into two halves, each with a fairly distinct sonic identity. The first 5 songs are heavily influenced by trip-hop music in the vein of Portishead or Massive Attack. Trippy percussions, electronic beats and scratches dictate chilled and relaxed tempos. Layered on top are swathes of synths and strings, providing a loopy, dreamy soundscape. The guitars are used only occasionally to inject color. Occasionally, brass instruments are used to give a jazzy vibe to the proceedings (“Zeppoliner”). Female vocals dominate the first half of the album, on “Zeppoliner”, “Good Evening Mr. Q” and “Thin Dark Line”. Kirsti Huke sings on the first two tracks. Her voice has a nice jazz vibe that matches perfectly the songs’ loungy atmosphere. The vocal melodies are beautiful: catchy, but fragile and understated, reminding me somewhat of Bjork (especially in “Zeppoliner”). “Thin Dark Line” features a different singer, Ingrid Toldstad, whose style is more reminiscent of Anneke van Giersbergen from The Gathering. The song itself is quite reminiscent of the Dutch atmospheric rockers, especially of their mid-period output (If_then_else; Souvenirs). The other two tracks “The City” and “Reflections” are more experimental (especially the latter, with its Ozzy-style vocals and guitar drones), but perpetuate the atmospheric rock aesthetics that characterize the first half of the record.
After a jazzy instrumental (“Fools like Us”), Memoirs takes a weirder turn, plunging into a darker sonic space where doom, dark, and gothic meet avant-garde experimentalism. Manes, In the Woods … and Green Carnation are suitable references here. Green Carnation’s debut album (Journey to the End of the Night) provides a particularly fitting comparison due to the use of semi-improvised, deranged vocals that we can hear on “Those of My Kind” and “Spider” (comparisons to David Bowie are also made for the latter song). More metal stylings emerge in the music, which is now guitar-driven and darker compared to the first half. I have to confess that this turn comes rather unexpected, and not in a good way. It ruins somewhat the nice, moody ambiance the album had developed up to that point, especially because the quality of the melodies and arrangements seem to drop somewhat in songs like “Those of My Kind”, “Simple Minds” and “Spider”.
Ultimately, going through the album’s last three songs felt a bit like a chore and it definitely felt longer than their 20 minutes, which is never a good sign. The inferior finale ruins somewhat the listening experience, also because it gives Memoirs a hotchpotch appearance that makes it feel less like a full-length LP and more like a collection of disparate songs that perhaps should have been released on different EPs. If one ignores this issue, the album is nevertheless an accomplished, pleasant release that may not have the breath-taking quality of some of the band’s other releases, but nevertheless consolidates The Third and The Moral’s status as one of the classiest, most original bands in the Scandinavian metal scene.
Sample:
