MØL - Dreamcrush

Blackgaze has never sounded as radiant as it does for Møl. The positivity that the Danish band's sound reaches on this third album, titled "Dreamcrush", is nonetheless unprecedented even for them. From the very outset, on the aptly named opener "Dream" ("Crush" is instead the title of the muscular closer), the listener is plunged into a dreamlike dimension. The ethereal keyboards, the muffled drumming and the guitars reaching for the sky shimmer with the colours of the aurora borealis, and even when the riffs turn fierce and Kim Song Sternkopf's scream kicks in, there's no shaking off that dream-dust.

With its pursuit of a post-metal ecstasy, "Young" is the track most closely tied to extreme metal and, by extension, to the formula of their patron saints Deafheaven. Even here, though, the flood of light that bathes the pitch-black guitar storm is far more powerful than in any other blackgaze composition. The quintet sets a similar trap near the end with "Mimic", a track that buzzes with the intensity of a swarm of hornets, but as far as pure, hardcore extreme metal goes, that's more or less it.

Everywhere else, "Dreamcrush" is a dynamic, sprightly interplay between wildly disparate elements. Were it not for its blatantly black metal intro and interludes, "Sma Forlis" would be, to all intents and purposes, a new wave song, with Sternkopf unleashing an emphatic crooning à la Ian McCulloch; while "Favour", built on a foundation of synths and string details, meets the decadent romanticism of Dead Can Dance and Cocteau Twins.

"Garland" is the most precious result of this boundary-shunning attitude: a blend of searing screams and dancing keyboards, merciless rhythms and airy gothic rock verses. At times "Dreamcrush" seems to forget it's an extreme metal record at all, unashamed of its blatantly (dream)pop moments and of becoming accessible to far more ears than one might expect. Yet this greater openness to new solutions and listeners comes with no simplification whatsoever - the mastery required to handle such a hodgepodge of influences is truly immense.

For every hardline metalhead who turns away in disgust, "Dreamcrush" will win Møl new converts, dazzled by a work as powerful and luminous as a grey wizard's spell.

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05/02/2026