The brainchild of singer, songwriter, and guitarist from Yorkshire, Jayn Maiven, The Buried Storm is the sophomore full album from Darkher. It was released in April and came to my attention recently when peeking at a couple of metal websites.

The debut album, the thoroughly enjoyable Realms, was an altogether heavier affair than this album. The Buried Storm has been on the Lazland sound system continuously for a couple of weeks now, and the haunting, ethereal sound is a favourite of a fantastic 2022. This is an extremely special album, on which drummer Christopher Smith is a named act member, alongside guest string musicians including Ludwig Swärd of Nordic folk project Fandorm on the hugely impressive Lowly Weep, and guest vocalist Daniel Land on Fear Not, My King. The album was recorded, produced, and mixed by Maiven, and mastered by Michael Zech in Germany, and there is a distinct Gothic vibe to much of what is on here. Reviews I have seen of this album use descriptions such as “dark music.” I disagree with this. Yes, there is a sinister feel to some of it, but I do not find it dark, a word I usually associate with depressing and doom-laden. I find this wonderful album, which has a folk sensibility at its core, beautiful and uplifting. Perhaps the descriptor on the Bandcamp page https://darkher-uk.bandcamp.com/album/the-buried-storm is rather more accurate when it calls it “nocturnal beauty”, and there is a romance to some of it. It is a clear progression on Realms.

The 45 minutes on offer here begin with Sirens Nocturne, so a composition inspired by the night. There is a low-key violin before Maiven introduces herself vocally with a storm taking the protagonist away and no tomorrow will ever find her. When the vocal scream rises above the more urgent violin and darker cello underbelly, you are reminded of those dark winter nights with the weather raging outside and no modern power to wash away the dark. I can see in my mind’s eye Maiven performing this on the Moors in the dead of night. A powerful and evocative beginning to the album.

This segues into Lowly Weep, where we are introduced to Smith thudding out a deep skin rhythm. This is the longest track on the album at just short of eight minutes long, and I simply love the deep cello which leads us into the vocals asking her lowly weep to go to sleep. There is a nightmarish quality when we are told that the darkest night terrifies. Swärd impresses on this passage with his cello and background vocals above the pulsing riffs below. Just under half way in, the track slows to a delicate pace featuring a nice guitar loop and Maiven’s ethereal chant before we get a thunderous riff section, and here the track does become menacing, before there are some notes and noises rising above which take one into a dreamlike state above the threatening noises below, although it is not a place you would particularly wish to visit too often. Extremely impressive in its scope and in its execution, this track is a genuine cracker.

The undertone continues on Unbound, which is led by an acoustic guitar set of chords which increase in intensity when Maiven sings backed by more ethereal voices. The track sings to me of tearing oneself off of one’s mortal restrictions and letting go into that deep mysterious place we simply cannot explain. It is far too short, but not when you consider that the album does need to be listened to as a whole as opposed to a set of individual tracks. Where the Devil Waits is up next, and this is not, you would expect, usually in the brightest of places. However, this track speaks of burning hands around her, and she can’t breathe, and the devil waits to capture all of her. This is, therefore, a love song, and a damned effective one. It speaks to me of that passionate and intensive love (or lust) that takes us completely and transports us to the place beyond simple sex or day to day life. The violin passage is quite gorgeous alongside the high voices at the inevitable comedown from climax. A quite stunning piece of music.

We move to Love’s Sudden Death. The opening segment is dark and heavy with stark riffs, and the major lyrical passage of love’s sudden death killing me could be seen as a dark counterpoint to the love on the track which came immediately before. Love and light into a sudden darkness. It tells a story of something ending, and the drumbeats are particularly evocative in thumping this out, but it could also be interpreted as a release, as in the open spaces of the video I embed below. As with the best of music, the sense of the meaning you get is intensely personal to you.

The mood is changed on The Seas, with a delicate acoustic passage and Meiven singing about an encounter with the sun bleeding. This is a magnificent piece of folk music, with its dark and sombre cello accompanying a melancholic voice perhaps signifying the comedown from Love’s Sudden Death, the aftermath as it were.

Immortals is the second longest track on the album, again just short of eight minutes long. This is a very clever piece of music which screams out a love of ocean and an appreciation of the impact sea all around one can bring, at once reducing us to a smallness at the size of the waves rising above a capsized human, but also bringing a sense of the immortality of creation. This is perfectly encapsulated in the “immortal are we” lyrics, gorgeously sung, to the extended instrumental piece which follows. The drum riffs are interesting and thudding in their intensity and the guitar chords are haunting. As the track moves to its denouement, and it is a long one, the noise develops and grows and grows before the final minute pars down and delivers a starkly simple, but no less effective, guitar loop with noises and voices fading out.

The final track is Fear Not, My King. Again, the cello is evocative, and there is a simple piano chord below the ethereal noises above. This is another love song, and Land’s vocals behind Meiven are very effective. The closing vocals speak of the more she closes her eyes, the more she sees we are guided, and there is an interesting war siren swirling above the dense noises and thumping drum and I get a sense of deep loss in the lyrics and the disturbed cello chords at the close.

The album is released via Prophecy Productions https://en.prophecy.de/ and first listened to on iTunes before purchasing the digital album from Bandcamp – worth every penny and very highly recommended. Try it before you buy it but do please consider supporting the artist.