MORK – Monolitt

vote
7.5

• Bands:
  MORK
• Duration: 00:46:41
• Available from: 06/19/2026
• Label:

• Peaceville

Thomas Eriksen (the mind behind the moniker Mork) is what in sport would be romantically defined as a luxury wingman: not to diminish his talents, on the contrary, but to underline how his career in the black metal world, which certainly started very late compared to the golden years of the genre and his own musical commitments as a producer, has never disappointed in terms of will and results – and no harm if he doesn't drag the team to win the Champions League.

This is also confirmed by this “Monolitt”, an album that intensifies the more lashing and dark components of the previous “Syv”, devoted to a direction that for a good part of the album borders on almost industrial themes, with tight rhythms and even more glacial than in the past; as an absolute reference, we can say that the eternal love for Darkthrone and their sounds is here put in the background compared to the evident weight of Satyricon, to be precise those of the period between “Volcano” and “The Age Of Nero”, given the sensations of misanthropic detachment transmitted.
The work perhaps presents the flaw whereby, having found an effective path and in which ours certainly shows he is at ease, the songs tend to follow the same compositional style, albeit with some interesting variations: there are suffocating doom slowdowns (“Ødelagt”), or the epic cut of “Torden”, with the addition of non-invasive but powerful keyboards and a vocal bridge modulated in an almost lyrical manner.
“Skrømt” is instead the most 'nostalgic' song present, with a departure in medias res which conveys a sense of infinity and alienation, and an extremely obsessive riffing: here we go back to the most intransigent Darkthrone, yet Mork do not trivialize the recovery of certain 'classical' elements, then changing the piece into a spiral of atmospheric violence.
Furthermore, “Inn i en annen saere” is characterized by the slower initial arpeggio, which however does not make the piece less incisive. Among the most representative songs on the album, in our opinion the winner is the double consisting of “Martyr”, perhaps the most intense and hieratic track, and “Jutul”, with its atmosphere worthy of “Vikings” – and it is no coincidence that the title contains references to Norse traditions.
Worth mentioning is a very respectable guest, namely Asgeir Mickelson behind the skins, and you can definitely hear the contribution of someone who has Spiral Architect, Borknagar and Ihsahn on his CV, fundamental for defining the obsessive atmospheres of the abundant three quarters of an hour of music available here.

A record that, to summarize, once again shows the high level achieved by Mork; a band that is always missing a little bit of perfection, but it is not necessarily a flaw, as written above.
Of course, it's a shame that, when he does things well, Eriksen sits down and ends up composing works that are a little too monolithic, but perhaps there is enough awareness and self-irony, to the point that the title of the album can also be considered in this light.