When one of the founding acts of a much beloved musical style returns from a decade and change of silence, we call that a good year. When it happens twice in two years, well I just count my blessings. So called “Cascadian Black Metal” needs little introduction at this point, with acts like Agalloch and Wolves in the Throne Room dominating that conversation for years at this point. Yet some of the earliest acts that helped make the geographically-inspired subgenre of a subgenre of heavy metal what it was seemingly went quietly into the night. Then, with no fanfare, we were graced with the reemergence of British Columbia’s Skagos eleven years after their last album, and this is now followed by the first album from Olympia, WA’s Fauna in thirteen years. More than just a return from a pioneering metal act, Ochre & Ash is a poignant look into the depths of humanity.

Ochre & Ash sits in an interesting category of albums; between it, the aforementioned Skagos album and the Arkhaaik and Returning releases from months earlier this year, there have been a number of albums that have crossed my radar that in some way deal with prehistory, animism, and a desire to return to something more primal. Through the lens of the materials used to make some of the earliest marks of human kind on the cave walls of the earth, Fauna attempt to construct a ritual to take the listener back in time to when the beginnings of human spirituality brought us closer together. Ochre & Ash is a single hour long piece divided into six conceptual movements, with ritual chanting and percussion weaving in and out of the band’s iconic, howling black metal. Of the albums mentioned as its peers, it stands out as being the most bare, raw, and emotionally driven, and in doing so it stands as a fitting transmutation of subject into sound. Its themes of a journey back to the core of human experiences mirrors the musical return to what that vast, forested region gave us that was truly special: music that felt alive, wild without abandon, communing desperately with the numinous.

Ochre & Ash is a fitting album for a return from one of the bands that made Cascadian Black Metal what it is. Even after years of silence on their own part and many of their peers moving towards different musical ideals, Fauna remain true to the core spirit that has fueled them since their inception, and remain stronger for it. It is less an album and more an experience.

— Vincent

---

Ochre & Ash is available now on Prophecy Productions. For more information on Fauna, visit the band’s official website.