A Certain Taste

  There are albums that arrive quietly, slipping into the conversation with a polite knock. And then there are albums that kick the door clean off its hinges, plant themselves in the centre of the room, and dare you to blink first. Monolitt, the latest dispatch from Norwegian black metal titan Mork, is emphatically the latter. Thomas Eriksen has spent two decades building this monument, and with Monolitt, he may have just constructed its tallest, most unforgiving tower yet. To understand where Monolitt stands, you need to appreciate the trajectory. Eriksen conjured Mork into existence in 2004, though the project gestated in relative solitude before Isebakke finally broke surface in 2013. What followed was a relentless, purposeful ascent — not through trend-chasing or genre-dilution, but through sheer ferocious commitment to the craft. 2024’s Syv turned heads globally, cementing Eriksen’s standing as one of the foremost architects of the Norwegian black metal tradition and opening...