Fluisteraars – Jacht der Mysterien (Review)

After the ambient full-length Manifestaties van de ontworteling (2024) and the Kronieken EP trilogy (2023, 2025), here comes Jacht der Mysteriën (“Hunt of Mysteries”). A release that is, in characteristic Fluisteraars fashion, miles away from a typical album structure: three songs of over ten minutes each, similar to the phenomenal Gegrepen Door de Geest der Zielsontluiking (2021).

Songs on Gegrepen… and Bloem (2020) had their playful, dreamy, post-rock-esque bridges and interludes. This album, on the other hand, even more than the Kronieken EPs, carries a darker and more brooding atmosphere, supported by vast ambient soundscapes closing each song.

While guitarist, multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Mink Koops played bass and drums as well for previous recordings, the band changed its approach for Jacht der Mysteriën. The studio was entered as a band and the music was recorded in a single take. Joining Mink and vocalist Bob Mollema, Nico de Wit sat behind the drum kit while Thomas Cochrane, who was also responsible for recording and mixing, took over bass duties.

The musical result is, even for Fluisteraars‘ standards, stripped and distilled to a pretty pure Black Metal form. This was likely reinforced by the unusual recording method.
What awaits you here are haunting tremolo riffs, gripping drum beats and piercing vocals, all executed in a way that pulls you in and leaves you in an almost trance-like state.

After some brief ambient moments, “Grondelos Donkere Bossen” (“Fathomless Dark Forests”) puts the riff front and center that dominates most of the song. This song is heavily carried by songwriter Mink’s talent for creating Black Metal riffs that sound sinister and dreadful in an old school and fresh way at the same time.

While blast beats often make up big portions of the band’s percussion, this opener, similar to the album closer, stays exclusively in a pervasive, double-bass-driven mid-tempo. However, to the surprise of my blast-beat-hungry self, the song does not lose an ounce of force, impact or intensity.
The 13-minute song embraces the genre’s minimalism unconditionally: it’s built on just two parts, each consisting of only a handful of notes. This austerity gives more room and attention to Bob’s vocals and the eerie synths that constantly linger in the background. It also makes details like the slightly diverging bass line in the second verse and the change of atmosphere in the chorus become striking pillars of the song.

From the very first moment, “Condities der Afstraffing” (“Conditions of Punishment”) crashes its wall-of-sound blast beats and blistering riffs into you like waves crushing against a cliff. In terms of tempo and variation, this is a more classic Fluisteraars experience: the Black Metal frenzy alternating with hymn-like passages.

After half of the song, Bob’s intense and perfectly punctuated recitation of the song title leads into one of the biggest moments of the album, with melancholy and a powerful longing conveyed through a prominent, shrieking, wonderful riff.

“Zwarte Zomermaan” (“Black Summer Moon”) sits somewhere between the approaches of the other two songs. While the drums again stay away from blast beats, they are noticeably more varied and intense than on the opening track.

The two halves of the song are split by a toned-down bridge. A thick and palpable atmosphere, created by ambient sounds and whispered vocals, is slowly building up to another big highlight: the stunning, yearning tremolo which is carried through the whole second half of the song. With the soundscape so heart-wrenchingly emotional, the band does the one thing I want them to and reiterates the part again and again and again. Until the song fades out in a long, ambient outro which leaves plenty of room for the sonically sparked emotions to linger a bit longer inside you.

As with their other releases, each of the three songs has weight, character and tells its own chapter, while still continuing the overall story in this dark and magical saga that is Fluisteraars.
This is the musical representation of a long walk through a misty and haunting forest at night, completely lost in thought and inhaling your surroundings every step of the way.
An impressive lesson in “less is more”. So much more, in fact, that I consider this album one of Fluisteraars‘ strongest in a lineage of fantastic and impressive releases.