If metal must exist as a genre, this is how it ought to be. Gone are the macho posturing, disgusting hate speech and brutal pro-violence agenda of far too many modern metal acts.

Scarborough’s Falls of Rauros have instead created a brand of metal that celebrates the vast and awesome beauty of the nature they grew up in. The imagery on the album “The Light That Dwells in Rotten Wood” is of old forests and even older mountains; the violence is that of a terrible thunderstorm and relentless dark waves crashing onto a rocky coast.

It’s exactly the aesthetic you would expect from a band named after a waterfall in “The Lord of the Rings.”

“The Light That Dwells in Rotten Wood” is not a typical black metal album – it’s considerably easier on the ears. While clearly in the lineage of black metal powerhouses Gorgoroth, the boys in Falls of Rauros have taken that mannequin and given it a whole new wardrobe.

Where black metal is traditionally a highly dissonant experience, this album is teeming with melody and even greater harmonic variation. The semi-acoustic interludes scattered throughout suggest the influence of experimental and atmospheric metal pioneers such as Neurosis and Maudlin of the Well. A lot of black metal sounds dated, but by embracing a more diverse set of influences Falls of Rauros have achieved a more timeless quality in their music.

Everything about “The Light That Dwells in Rotten Wood” is huge, from the fog-obscured mountain on the cover, to the ambitious song lengths and massive walls of guitar that form the backbone of the music. The vocals sound shouted from the bottom of a dark cavern, providing a softer attack than the average scream. The instrumental performance is close to perfect, marred only by a few barely noticeable rhythmic hiccups. The production is clean and smart without sounding polished, and the album is well mixed, although the hard panning of the guitars makes this album a better listen on speakers than on headphones.

All told, Falls of Rauros have come out with an ambitious and highly successful new take on black metal that leaves me excited to see where they will go next.