I sometimes become spellbound by how the sun dances through the leaves, branches, and gossamer during the warmer months. As cheesy as it may sound, these moments find me deeply reflecting on the experiences I’ve had and the people I’ve met. My mind’s wanderings during these moments are generally positive, but they’re always accompanied by an acknowledgement of life’s transience. Those bittersweet ruminations are what I’m reminded of while listening to Infinite Presence, the new release from Romanian post-black metal band Genune.
On Infinite Presence, Genune captures the bright, wistful side of post-black metal. This is nothing new, as you can find it in abundance on now-classic touchpoints, such as Deafheaven’s Sunbather and Lantlôs’s .neon, among others. It’s a common enough style that my friends and I have endearingly referred to it as Graduation Day Black Metal™ for years. At its most foundational level, Graduation Day Black Metal™ encompasses black metal that is sonically light and bittersweet rather than dark and brooding. In its darkest moments, it captures feelings of longing and regret. Beyond that, the chord progressions are resoundingly major, the clean and acoustic interludes express tenderness, and the lyrics are often more introspective and melancholic than your average black metal songs about Satan and the like.
Genune’s previous release, 2021’s Inert & Unerring, stands in dark contrast with Infinite Presence. While still post-black metal in its use of slow-building atmospherics, Inert & Unerring is often dark and plodding, nearly verging on DSBM at times. Interestingly enough, it’s that album’s final minutes, during the closing track “Eastern European Discontent”, that hints at the brightness and bittersweetness the band would fully embrace on Infinite Presence. Even the titles of the tracks, such as “The Sun Will Always Shine” and “I Want You Here”, provide some insight into how this album will be different.
But that change in mood and shift in song titling is hardly the only difference between Inert & Unerring and Infinite Presence. There is a clear maturity in composition and arrangement, as the songs on Infinite Presence are more dynamic and feature a wider array of instrumentation. The songs on Infinite Presence ebb and flow between tremolo-picked sections with driving drums and spacious, ethereal interludes. “Little Fountains” encapsulates this compositional strategy by opening with a heavy yet triumphant section before eventually arriving at a glimmering and pensive section featuring clean guitars, one of which sounds as if it’s played with a slide or e-bow. On “The Sun Will Always Shine,” a buoyant chord progression played on a piano serves as a sudden break after a more aggressive section. Aside from the quality of the compositions in of themselves, the sheer variety in dynamics and instrumentation does a lot of work to keep the listener engaged throughout the long running times of the tracks.
Despite that, there are certain points throughout the album where there is some whiplash between the driving, heavier sections and the softer, reflective moments. Upon first listen, I assumed that the awkwardly long, sustained guitar in the middle of “Little Fountains” signaled the ending of the song rather than a transition back to the song’s lighter section. “Stay a Little Longer” has a hard stop that suddenly transitions to a warm, warbly synthesizer that gradually becomes more ominous. It eventually overstays its welcome though, as it is the only instrumentation for the last three full minutes of the song. These hard-stop transitions can be jarring. But given how engaging the compositions are as a whole, those awkward moments are easily overlooked.
In recent years, I have rarely been enthralled by Graduation Day Black Metal™ to the degree that I have been with Infinite Presence. It’s hard not to admit that Genune leans on the Deafheaven influence a little too strongly on Infinite Presence. However, the band’s fine-tuned sense of composition and dynamic movement, miles beyond what was displayed on Inert & Unerring, should be the envy of post-black metal bands everywhere.