This will be a review on the band's latest release The Unnatural World but with a predecessor so poignant and sealed in my heart and I'm sure in the hearts of their fan base I am itching to present the band's harrowing début that stands as a superlative monolith within the genre.
Deathconsciousness (2008)
"A Quick One Before the Eternal Devours Connecticut" seduces me into a slumber within my waking life, a sense of mysterious comfort and beauty that unravels into ominous tones that prick my heart. A minimal introduction that in no way prepares you for the next 78 minutes you are about to endure. Hold on to that light you've been gifted by this ethereal ambience, you may need it.
A clean bass line dances the listener into the next track and is present throughout the song like the world is tumbling slowly in the background but whatever who even cares.
The vocals keep that sultry heavy trance that has been pervading from the start, a maddening repetitive monologue following that faint rumbling bass "we kill everyone with arrowheads, arrowheads, arrowheads, arrowheads. Arrowheads, arrowheads, arrowheads, arrowheads, arrowheads" ad nauseam.
Thus begins this tenderly crafted vision of apocalyptic hopelessness and uncertainty executed by a character that stays in tune with their failure to connect with the world even in a time of its collapse.
Each track is not without its spectral accompaniment whispering, rumbling and at times howling beside lonesome vocal melody, numbed riffing or scattered echoing drums. A intelligently executed depiction of the impending unknown.
The ubiquitously raw production adds the sort of fragility to this release that is evocative of lo-fi black metal, transforming simple guitar progressions into a chilling smog of atmosphere.
Occasionally there is a drop in atmosphere, a brief calm before the storm depicting that numb human constant, that evolutionary mechanism to cope with the trauma around us.
"There is No Food" breaks the album up wonderfully from sporadic hysteria to an unnerving dread. The muffled vocals, subtle background suffering of nameless survivors and ringing in your ears assures you that this swelling dark ambience isn't a break for the listener from this relentless turmoil but a new dark chapter.
With a flourish of quasi industrial, post punk, up tempo chord progression on the inaptly named "Waiting for Black Metal Records to Come in the Mail" we are the dancing dead.
This theme follows the album to a close before breaking into clean guitar and vocals which inevitably are seized by thunderous drums and all consuming reverb and before succumbing completely, before communication loses itself in this sea of noise the vocals gasp among wailing harmonies "we wish we were dead" and after hanging for so long we are granted the end with absolute deathconsciousness style, aching notes plucking and crying out into an overwhelming static to an unnerving close.
The Unnatural World (2014)
Anyone who has encountered or has been swept up in the hype around the bands initial release will be aware of the pressure involved in following such an object of attachment. I eagerly awaited a new release by after the announcement and the date began to loom ever closer I started to wonder if I would need to prepare myself for disappointment.
To listen to the records back to back (although I respect them as individual pieces of art) Unnatural World's introductory track Guggenheim Wax Museum is a rewarding release from the previous work's closing track Earthmover, perhaps I'd been insecurely clinging to the first like lovers growing apart and as such had to accept it's place in my heart but now I need room to grow.
This release is far from a disappointment and elements from past works satisfyingly compliment the fresh atmosphere on this latest album. It begins dark and dreamy, an intoxicating miasma moving slowly and surely It's easy listening but still possesses that stirring edge.
Defenestration Song, a reworked demo released on the band's 'Voids' cassette breaks from the build up of poisonous fog created by the introduction
This release is far from a disappointment and elements from past works satisfyingly compliment the fresh atmosphere on this latest album. It begins dark and dreamy, an intoxicating miasma moving slowly and surely It's easy listening but still possesses that stirring edge.
Defenestration Song, a reworked demo released on the band's 'Voids' cassette breaks from the build up of poisonous fog created by the introduction
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