Black Narcissus - There Lingers One Who’s Long Forgotten

Angry Metal Guy

It’s often impossible to convey feelings with words, so it’s sometimes better not to try. This certainly appears to be the philosophy of Black Narcissus, an instrumental post-rock duo from Belgium comprised of bassist Jesse Massant and drummer Thomas Wuyts. While instrumental groups are hardly uncommon, especially in this genre, Black Narcissus is unique in that bass and drums are the only tools they use to construct their interpretation of the relationship between man and nature. These two vital, stalwart instruments can often be overshadowed by the flashy vocal and multi-guitar antics commonplace in rock and metal. How bright can they shine in a setting where they possess the spotlight by default?

Black Narcissus’ main goal is to cultivate an environment where individual emotional responses can freely blossom. There Lingers One Who’s Long Forgotten is teeming with ethereal, evocative melodies sounding like the result of cross-pollination between earlier Explosions in the Sky and Alcest’s Les Voyages de L’Âme era.¹ As this description might suggest, there is little resembling heaviness aside from stray blast beats and thick, reverb-drenched bass chords. But those who share our Overlord’s cynical views regarding the role of reverb in atmospheric music needn’t worry; in this case, it’s not a crutch to force a specific mood. Rather, the rich moods naturally wax and wane through masterful musical arrangements, developed enough to easily latch onto yet ambiguous enough to leave room for personal interpretation. Black Narcissus recognizes that, like in nature, there is beauty in simplicity, and all are welcome to partake.

There Lingers One Who’s Long Forgotten by Black Narcissus

Mother Nature may recycle her resources but Black Narcissus doesn’t recycle ideas. Both players continually explore different melodies and tempos, like walking past one tree after another, each unique but part of a singular forest. Massant’s bass lines gently cascade during “In Throes of Increasing Wonder” and ripple in “Draped in Ivy, Guilded by Time” as if in response to Wuyts’ syncopated crashes like raindrops hitting a pond surface. I can’t stress enough how much the drumming thrives in this partnership. Wuyts takes full advantage of the music’s free-flowing character to play one intricate rhythm after another, seemingly using the entirety of his drum kit on a regular basis. The music is further enriched by the warm and whimsical tones of an upright bass—Massant proving to be an expert bassist in more than one sense—which cast a folksy cinematic tint onto tracks such as “On This Twilight Evening” and “These Hands That Build.”

The reluctance of Black Narcissus to linger long in any one place does not mean that they abandon streams of thought prematurely. They provide ample space for each musical passage to gradually bloom and disperse seeds to transition to the next as effortlessly as the passage of time. Time, though, is largely irrelevant here. There Lingers One Who’s Long Forgotten lasts for exactly one hour, but it could have been either half or twice as long and remained equally entrancing. Therefore, it works best if the listener is willing to surrender any dispositions toward customary song structures and witness a forest grow at its pleasure with no concern for the orderliness of man. To this end, the production sounds fantastic. The bass lines, often layered atop one another, are easily audible; each cymbal tap, tom beat, and snare hit sounds crisp and satisfying. My only minuscule grievance is when a spoken word sample in “At the Mercy of Men with No Mercy at All” interrupts immersion by lasting too long, but the other samples throughout the album are used more sparingly.

There Lingers One Who’s Long Forgotten is an aural treat I could never have been prepared for. I selected an instrumental album because I thought it would help me focus during a busy period in my day job, but it gave me way more than I bargained for. While it does make for pleasant background music, it becomes increasingly rewarding the more time and attention are invested. It’s truly an album to become lost in, each hauntingly beautiful song a great companion for many different moods and activities. After five paragraphs of inadequate efforts to describe its majestic sound, I have to admit that Black Narcissus is correct: words are of little value in this realm. So, if you haven’t already, press play and hear the magic for yourself.

Rating: 4.5/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: PCM
Label: Dunk! Records (EU) | A Thousand Arms Music (US)
Websites: blacknarcissusband.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/blacknarcissusband
Releases Worldwide: February 14th, 2025

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