“Autumn Eternal” evokes its namesake from the start. Leading in with a somber bluegrass piece like those peppered throughout the last two albums, Austin Lunn’s one-man band, Panopticon, conjures images of amber leaves gliding to the ground as nature prepares for the coming winter. After this brief introduction, however, Lunn sheds his bluegrass influences. Rather, “Autumn Eternal” takes a black metal approach, which was hinted at in previous albums, and pushes it to an extreme. The resulting album reflects autumn at every moment.
The first proper metal track is “Into the North Woods,” which sounds similar to pieces from Deafheaven and Alcest. Panopticon takes peaceful and simple guitar melodies, which belong in a post-rock song’s climax, and plays them with a ridiculously fast tremolo picking backed by ferocious blast beats. The result creates a strangely relaxing trancelike state for the listener. It seems wrong that such harsh noise can evoke the quiet atmosphere of autumn found on the album’s cover — but it does. The cold beauty of nature’s last colorful hurrah before it sinks into winter is captured perfectly by this style.
The real backbone behind this album, surprisingly, is its phenomenal rhythm section. Lunn plays all of the instruments on the album but seems most proficient behind a drumset. “Oaks Ablaze” opens with a thunderous cacophony of blast beats and double kick drums, only to tread into a series of quick tom rolls behind a quiet and reflective post-rock guitar lead. Lunn is so confident that for a few bars in “Sleep to the Sound of the Waves Crashing,” the guitar riffs almost entirely vanish. Only the sheer ferocity of the drums and bass propels the song forward. This is boosted by a stellar production job, as the raucous drums and punchy bass are audible and thrust the music forward.
A few moments in the record are uncomfortable, such as the dark opening riff of “Sleep to the Sound of the Waves Crashing” or the unsettling scream following its somber cello solo. As a whole, however, “Autumn Eternal” is quite the relaxing collection. As the last few chords of “The Wind’s Farewell” fade out, the trance is finally broken. The listener transitions from fall. Lunn may not have reinvented the wheel of atmospheric black metal, but this revamping of Panopticon deserves credit for one of the most engaging and quality metal records of 2015.
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