Mount Eerie

The tribute album has become a ubiquitous, largely uninspired phenomenon. But as Wind’s Poem proves, subtler forms of sonic homage can still hold magical promise. This latest dispatch from Mount Eerie—the brainchild of highly prolific Washington State singer-songsmith Phil Elverum, who has also recorded as the Microphones—draws on the unlikely genre of Norwegian black metal. Yet even though that style has become as fashionable in indie circles as hip-hop, there’s nothing slavish or cutesy about this release, which nods to the unrelenting bleakness of its influences in strange, unpredictable ways.

Some of the album’s raw textures allude directly to the work that inspired it. But while Elverum employs a crushing, ultrafuzzy riff on “The Hidden Stone,” he juxtaposes it with his folkish, highly lyrical vocals. The result sounds like a collaboration between Bonnie “Prince” Billy and legendary black-metal outfit Burzum—a mixture all the scarier for its incongruity.

The most effective tracks eschew literal heaviness altogether. The brief ballad “My Heart Is Not at Peace” employs only hazy guitar strums, muffled percussion and unsettling imagery (“Satisfaction feels like a tomb”), but it achieves an air of deeply stirring melancholy. “Summons” is even sparer. Over a shifting collage of drones, Elverum quietly welcomes a cataclysm: “Come, wind / Destroyer of worlds.” Here and throughout Wind’s Poem, he evokes creeping dread while barely raising his voice above a whisper.—Hank Shteamer

Mount Eerie plays Market Hotel Oct 31 and (Le) Poisson Rouge Nov 1.

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