Almost three decades after its heyday in the mid-to-late ’90s, there are a number of the most renowned Swedish melodic black metal bands still officially around today — Sacramentum, Dawn, Vinterland, to name a few — but new music seems unlikely to appear on the cold horizon anytime soon, if ever from these acts. One band that has bucked the trend of their peers is Mörk Gryning, who return to close out 2024 with the second album since their 2016 reformation, Fasornas Tid. It’s not an easy task to juggle the legacy of a classic sound with modern tendencies, but the band once again prove capable of meeting the challenge head-on with a ferocity equal to a lot of up-and-coming bands in the genre.

If there’s a single black metal band that gets cited as an influence as often as Bathory, it would probably be Emperor. For good reason, as In the Nightside Eclipse and Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk are two of the most iconic black metal albums of all time, with very few bands reaching those heights of atmosphere and songwriting while still remaining trve to a core black metal sound. But why do I start off this Mörk Gryning review talking about Emperor, do you ask? Well that’s because the Emperor influence is laid bare right from the get-go on Fasornas Tid; the instrumental intro takes a lead straight from the classic “I am the Black Wizards” melody, and “The Seer” hits with chunky, mid-paced riffs and Ihsahn-esque cleans that are uncannily reminiscent of Welkin at Dusk or Ihsahn’s early solo work, so much so that I almost had to question who I was listening to. An interesting choice to start off a sophomore comeback album, but thankfully the Mörk Gryning sound of upper-register trem-picked riffs is found once again on “Tornet.” This song is such a great return to form, with a truly epic soaring melody dominating its latter half, that I wish they had just opened with this one right out the gate.

For a band that undoubtedly lives in the shadow of their tremendous 1995 debut Tusen år har gått… — an achievement made even greater considering the founding duo of Goth Gorgon and Draakh Kimera were only 15 and 18 when the album was recorded — Mörk Gryning have to deal with the issue of legacy; do they simply try (and likely fail) to recreate the classic sound, or push forward and bring that sound into the present? Their quite solid 2020 comeback album Hinsides vrede did this with a number of folk influences that were a nice surprise, and on Fasornas Tid this is accomplished through a heavy use of the aforementioned cleans and a greater focused on more rhythmic, mid-paced songs (especially in the middle of the album). It’s not a sound that I’m particularly in love with myself, as I’m not too confident I’d’ve have paid much attention to this album if the Mörk Gryning name wasn’t attached — it could easily fall under the vast category of simply okay modern melodic black metal albums. Regardless, I have to commend the band for trying new things. Tracks like “An Ancient Ancestor of the Modern Moon” do a good job of combining a more modern sound with the classic Swedish trem-picking, tied together with the light symphonic keyboards that are another highlight throughout the album (most notably the title track).

Mörk Gryning haven’t created another masterpiece with Fasornas Tid, but they don’t exactly need to. If this can please both a modern black metal audience as well as us lovers of the classic ’90s material, then it will have done its job well. At the very least, it demonstrates that they’re one of the only remaining bands from the Swedish melodic black scene with the guts and work ethic to actually write and release new music in 2024. I really hope they light a spark that will see others follow them up soon, before that fire is lost forever.

— Colin

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Fasornas Tid will be available December 13 on Season of Mist. For more information on Mörk Gryning, check out their Facebook and Instagram pages.