Review: Soulbrud – IIII
Solbrud’s “IIII” is the sort of album that wants to be a landscape rather than a songbook, an expanse of grey sky and slow weather rather than a parade of hooks. At roughly ninety minutes, it is an exercise in scale: long tracks, slow arcs, and an insistence that the listener move at the band’s pace. That patience is both the record’s chief virtue and its chief liability. When the band’s patience pays off, the results are haunting and grand; when it doesn’t, the music threatens to lose focus in its own fog.
“Hvile” sets the tone with a long, austere build that moves from clean guitar ambience into low, trudging heaviness, and yes, there are several moments across the record where the band earn real cinematic payoff. Melodies that crest like pale sun through cloud, or sudden eruptions of blackened ferocity that feel earned because they have been withheld. The album is divided into extended movements that allow each idea to breathe; riffs recur like motifs in a bleak symphony, and the band often favour atmosphere and tension over the instantaneous gratification of a chorus. That approach suits those who want immersion, but it will frustrate listeners who want immediacy.
Musically, “IIII” shows a band comfortable moving between styles: Cascadian-post black ambience, mid-paced doom thunder, occasional shoegaze sheen, and moments of pure tremolo blast. The interplay between clean passages and raw screams is handled with care; the cleans seldom feel saccharine and the screams retain enough rasp to keep the edge. The production leans toward clarity rather than lo-fi fuzz: guitars have room, the bass rumbles, and the drums have presence. That clarity helps the long-form structures, letting small gestures matter.
Yet the very strength of deliberate pacing also reveals weaknesses. At several points the record’s length exposes repetition: ideas circle without significant development, and some songs feel like extended vignettes that could have been sharpened. The band’s compositional patience sometimes becomes an indulgence, when stretches of ambience add mood but not momentum. The sheer scope also dilutes the impact of the peaks; when one long surge follows another, the listener’s emotional reserves can be taxed before the final catharses arrive.
There are, nonetheless, dark beauties here. When “IIII” locks into its best grooves, the parts where melody and menace align, the effect is potent, like storms that break into quiet that isn’t simply absence but a new, fragile soundscape. The band’s decision to let songs unfold slowly gives them room to surprise when they finally strike. The album will reward listeners willing to sit with it fully, to let the long arcs do their work.
In short, “IIII” is an ambitious, occasionally overlong statement from a band that privileges atmosphere above immediacy. It doesn’t always justify its runtime, but it contains passages of genuine, bruised grandeur. For those who favour immersion over instant hooks, it’s a worthwhile, if demanding, voyage.
