“Dyret (23 bud)” sets the tone with ceremony and intent. The majestic overture—streaked by Espen Winther’s self-made Gnaal—opens into a stern, chest-beating march, the arrangement climbing in clean, deliberate layers until the hook lands like a seal of purpose. Lyrically, the song’s insistence on self-definition feels aimed both outward and back toward the rehearsal room of decades past. “Disiplin” is the record’s hard pivot: a drum riff pulled from early-’90s archives snaps the track into motion, its staccato pulse clearing space for a chorus that detonates around “for det som betyr noe for meg.” The performance is unfussy but airtight—kick and floor tom locked, bass carving monolithic lines beneath guitars that flicker between grind and glass.
Seigmen still do nocturne better than nearly anyone, and Dissonans protects that flame. “Rosemalt,” brief and weighty, functions as an elegy with the quiet gravity of a candlelit room. Reverb folds around Alex Møklebust’s voice; delay-brushed chords hang in the air like breath in cold light. The backstory—an unwitting tribute to the late Bjørn Opsahl and his unused rosemaling concept—deepens the ache, but it’s the restraint that lingers. “Så Nært” moves in the opposite direction: airy, frictionless, and sincerely balladic, it opens a window in the record, Møklebust softening his grain while the band lets negative space do the lifting. It’s unexpected without feeling opportunistic, a reminder that Seigmen’s heaviness has always included grace.
Elsewhere, the middle stretch sharpens the album’s thesis. “For Min Skyld” and “UVF” pull the camera back to the group’s core mood—those wintry, slow-rolling half-ballads where cymbals bloom like fog and guitars toll with a ritual steadiness. The production favors punch over gloss, a practical choice that suits this material: drums are close and physical, bass forward, effects guitars textural rather than ornamental. Across a tight 45 minutes, the band toggles between attack and afterglow, never letting momentum curdle into monochrome.
As a middle chapter, Dissonans carries the burden of propulsion—setting up an ending while refusing mere connective tissue—and it succeeds by treating history as clay. The album honors the abrasive nerve of Seigmen’s earliest work without cosplay, and it keeps the group’s signature melancholic altitude intact. More than anything, it sounds like a band that rediscovered not only discipline but appetite. If Resonans was the return, Dissonans is the risk. The circle narrows; the spark glows hotter.
