Named after a waterfall in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord Of The Rings, Maine’s folk black metal band Falls Of Rauros takes many musical inspirations for their compositions with the lyricism reflecting on nature, misanthropy, uncertainty and anarchism. Just three years past since Patterns in Mythology was released, Keys To A Vanishing Future is perhaps the band’s most accessible, expansive and imaginative records to date and for that reason alone, the experiences of listening to this majestic thrill ride of a album is really worth noting that their music is extremely engaging and lustrous.
Musically, if you’ve heard their past material this album does strip down a bit on the folk metal inspired compositions and have evolved their musical soundscapes incorporating more black metal signatures and even some post, progressive and death metal to a extent in which I personally believe that the more they explore their horizons the more I’m heavily invested into knowing what’s in store for this band. This record does demonstrate progressiveness, Cascadian black metal inspired instrumentals and established a naturalistic expression to see where their taking the music to whole new spiritual level. Most of these songs maintained the raw, comfortably crafted ambience and the atmospheric passages have been significantly increased as the progression from the album flourishes to breakthrough the creativity these musicians deliver surrounding themselves into a wild imagination.
Tracks like Known World Narrows, Clarity and Poverty Hymn takes the most claustrophobic effectiveness while retaining a more sporadic approach and featuring rebellious riffs, isolated drum performances, cavernous bass work and maddening vocal work adds more flair and contrast to the album’s beautiful presentation. This is a album portraying a story about J.R.R. Tolkien’s iconic franchise for Lord Of The Rings that surrounds a scenery to capture the beautiful essences for both black and folk metal to combine two genres into one cinematic and engaging listening experience. If you’re fans of Agalloch, Wolves In The Throne Room, Drudkh and Panopticon with wonderfully arranged musicality and incredible story-telling lyricism, Keys To A Vanishing Future is a fresh intake for extreme music and deserves your time to hear amazing sculptures of art.
Overall Score: 9.0/10
Review by Jake Butler
