Review BRIGHT AND BLACK ‘The Album’

Bright And Black, the contrast sits already in the name of a project that will release a debut, simply entitled ‘The Album’. The contributors to this album are some well-known names. Eicca Toppinen (Apocalyptica), Fredrik Åkesson (Opeth), Erik Danielsson (Watain), Nico Elgstrand (Entombed AD), Tomas Haake/ Dick Lövgren (Meshuggah), Jacob Hellner and Kristjan Järvi, they all play a major role in Bright And Black. But what is ‘The Album’ all about?

Metal music and orchestral music, these are often looked at as two different planets and there have been several attempts to connect both. Some more successful and some less, it was mostly the aim, to bring these too poles together musically. Bright And Black is slightly different when it comes to the approach of connecting the planets.

Photo credit: Siiri Kumari

Basically, ‘The Album’ has soundwise very little to nothing to do with metal. It is a cinematic orchestral album that was recorded with 65 orchestra members of the Baltic Sea Orchestra in late 2022 at Estonia Radio studio in Tallinn. So, there are no riffs or heavy guitar sounds on ‘The Album’. Instead, it is the mentioned protagonists known from the metal world who have written orchestral music.

For metalheads familiar might be the melancholic swinging cello, people know from Apocalyptica. But as the entire context is different, the cello is embedded in a totally different musical world that fascinates and even for guys like Toppinen, with his long experience with Apocalyptica, it was challenging to write songs like ‘Collateral Damage’, as the entire setup was different.

‘The Album’ is a successful effort to merge classic and metal without being metal. It is a magic and experimental outcome of a project that breaks down barriers and units in seeking new ground. It is the result of creativity, an open mind and willpower, leading to a fascinating result.