"When I was writing this album, I had several close friends and family members on my mind, people who were going through or had gone through some pretty major physical or mental health challenges," Carl Skildum said in a statement to Metal Injection. Skildum is the mind behind the newly-minted, Minneapolis-based, Inexorum; a melodic black metal entity that shimmers like the sun's reflection on the numerous Minnesotan lakes. His project's debut, Lore of the Lakes, arrives at the end of July.
Skildum continued to speak about the record saying, "I thought about how all of these people had impacted my life despite the extremely difficult headwinds they were facing, and how their strength helped me when I went through a difficult time of my own. So it was in that context that the ideas for 'Let Pain Be Your Guide' and 'To Omega' came about." While it will be some time until those songs arrive, it is with great elation that Metal Injection delivers the title track from Lore of the Lakes today.
Photo by: Angie Skildum
With a towering opening string of guitar notes, Skildum—joined by bassist Matthew Kirkwold—soon rip into breakneck riffing and thunderous drum rhythms. While the track possesses an inherent viciousness at times, the words and inspiration for the track carry something much more personal and touching. "The title track was inspired by my childhood home in northern Minnesota. I was surrounded by lakes and grew up with an appreciation of their natural beauty, but it was Lake Superior which really instilled a sense of awe. Here was this giant body of water that appeared to be infinite, with no visible sign of the opposite shore, giant cliffs, huge waves," Skildum recounted.
"I learned bits and pieces of the history of the indigenous explorers and merchants who worked on the lake and lost their lives in various shipwrecks. There were so many that there were maps of the lake marking all of the wrecks, and those were just the major ones from the last couple of centuries. The thought that we work in an uneasy partnership with nature stuck with me. Sometimes there is balance, but frequently we push too hard and leave scars. And occasionally nature pushes back as well. For me, the natural power of the lake and the stories of the people who were lost are inextricably combined. Their stories are part of the lake, and even though I live far away in the city now, those lakes are still a small part of me as well."
The stream of the title track comes in the form of a wonderfully shot music video—from, of course, Skildum himself. Slow-motion shots of rolling waves seem to work in odd time with Skildum's guitars and drums. For every handful of kick drum hits, a wave turns over and crashes. Shots of frozen ridges and woodlands also appear in this meditative video during the subdued portions of the title track.
"I shot the video around Bass Lake near Grand Rapids and various spots along the north shore of Superior over the course of a few months last fall. Most of the shots were just from me standing on the shore or a dock, Places like these always take my breath away even after having spent a good chunk of my youth around them and assuming that they'd always be the same. I feel like I can get outside of my own head there, and experience something beautiful and powerful that existed before me and that will persist after I'm long gone." Skildum concluded.
Watch the beautiful video for "Lore of the Lakes" below. Find Inexorum on Facebook and preorder the album from Gilead Media ahead of its July 27th release.
