Aural Aggravation

4th September 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

When selling themselves – or however else you may describe what bands or their PR do with their biographies and the blurbs which accompany releases – acts tend to go either one way or another. The first is to focus on context and heritage, and locate the music within a lineage amidst a list of touchstones. The second is to cast all of that aside, and accentuate the innovation, the difference, and the departure from all of that. Both approaches come with risks, albeit quite different ones. The former suggests that the band is derivative, and builds a certain expectation before the listener has heard a note. Not that it was Interpol’s fault that every critic under the sun sold them as Joy Division clones, which meant that I was sorely disappointed the first time I heard Antics. It sounded like so much indie, and I felt hugely let down. I came around pretty swiftly, but only once I’d come to terms with the fact they were, in reality, fuck all like Joy Division. Meanwhile, the latter sets the expectation that you’re about to hear something that’s nothing like anything you’ve heard before, and as a jaded critic of many years, I find myself sitting at my desk, adopting a mindset which is visually represented by arms folded, torso tilted back away, face wearing a light sneer that says ‘come on then, let’s have it,’ or perhaps even ‘here we are now, entertain us’. More often than not, these artists, too, fall short, as I find myself wondering if they live in a cultural vacuum, and how they could have possibly not heard X, Y. or Z, whom they sound so very like.

It’s in this latter category that Stockholm’s Gey Shores fall, when they forewarn that ‘a new voice is about to emerge from the depths of the Swedish underground. Grey Shores, the atmospheric black metal duo formed by Martin Andersson and Vilhelm Andersson, are preparing to release their debut album, Dark Waters of Night, a work that merges the emotional depth of post-rock with the cold intensity of black metal… Musically, Grey Shores inhabit a space where black metal, post-rock, and melancholic metal converge. Vilhelm Andersson’s background in atmospheric and post-rock music brings layers of texture, melody, and emotional nuance, while Martin Andersson contributes the harsher elements that form the album’s backbone.’

Don’t get me wrong: I’m genuinely thrilled by the prospect, but am equally prepared to be disappointed within the first three songs. Because not only am I jaded, I’m being sucked into the world of the ever-diminishing attention span. But hey, I can usually manage three songs rather than three seconds before making my mind up and hitting skip (boycotting Spotify likely helps with that, as does being old enough to remember buying an album and playing it several times even if you hated it at first and finding that over time, you quite liked it after all).

Dark Waters of Night contains just seven songs, and while the majority are around the five minute mark, there are a couple which are substantially under three.

Funnily enough, the opening bars of ‘Nothingness by My Side’ evoke the rippling chimes of ‘Untitled’, the first track on Interpol’s Antics, before drifting into a spacious, atmospheric soundscape – before, a mere fifty seconds in – rasping black metal vocals ride in on a wave of overdriven power chords. The song certainly exploits the dynamics of post-rock, with melodic, dreamy vocals washing across delicately picked clean guitar, propelled by jittery, almost jazzy drumming in the verses, and there are hints of Oceansize and Explosions in the Sky here, but instead of surging crescendos, we get screaming black metal fury. I’m sure if I spent long enough searching, I could find something akin to this, but right here, right now, to my ears, this does offer something different and sees the band deliver on their promise, and it’s exciting.

Amidst the raging metal tempest of ‘The Withering Tree’ arrives a moment of calm which is almost folk in flavour alongside the chiming post-rock atmospherics, while ‘In The Pale Light’ offers a sound that’s quintessentially post-metal, and brings some magnificent lead hooks. The demonic howls provide quite the contrast, and then the mid-section makes an unexpected switch toward the expansive, and brings with it clean, melodic vocals. It borders on the schizophrenic, but it works, as they stitch the transitions practically seamlessly, sometimes overlapping.

‘Herald the Dark’ hints towards the territory of lighter-waving anthem, at least to begin with. But what starts out as pretty tame, swiftly gets gnarly, while preserving the anthemic qualities. Nevertheless, while it’s perhaps the album’s most ambitious track – at least commercially – it’s also the weakest musically.

On ‘Sights of Woe’ they step up the cinematic aspects with the introduction of choral backing – and some classically overblown fretwork. At this point, it’s clear that Grey Shores really are committed to pushing black metal to new places, and the gentle instrumental fade of ‘January Wolves’ is simply a perfect post-rock wind-down. Dark Waters of Night is not only a great album – detailed, textured, varied, dynamic, incendiary – but one which delivers on its promise.

The quality cover art warrants a bonus thumbs-up, too.

AA