Tómhyggja (e. Nihilism) is a single, unbroken piece of dark ambient music. The title is Icelandic for nihilism and tómhyggja literally translates to "empty-belief" from tóm (empty) and hyggja (belief, thought, conviction). It is not a dramatic word… it simply names a condition: the state of holding nothing. Nihilism has never recovered from its misreading. It is treated as a mood, a phase, a provocation and as something worn rather than reached. The popular imagination places the nihilist in opposition to the world, like shaking a fist at a God they claim not to believe in, their very rage a contradiction. But this is not nihilism. This is grief dressed in borrowed clothes. True nihilism is not a confrontation with meaninglessness. It is a reconciliation with it. Whether that reads as peace or desolation is not a question the album answers. That, too, feels honest.
