Album Review: Sedna - S/T

“No politics. No religions” screams their biography.

Italians Sedna are obviously keen for you to focus on their musical output alone and they needn’t worry. At times abrasive and antagonistic, at others soul-sapping and desolate, their self-titled debut album is going to grab your attention. In fact, its nothing short of cathartic. By pumping out exploratory, hardcore-tinged doom/sludge accented by a landslide of drums and throat-ripping screams, their music demands of its listeners.

Their pitch black tone draws influence from inventive monsters like Amen Ra, Wolves In The Throne Room and Year Of No Light, but there is also a keen, morbidly fascinating edge similar to that explored by post-‘core fiends like The Elijah and Amia Venera Landscape. Punishing initially then ebbing into a sequence of sanguine oscillations around 13 minutes, “Sons Of The Ocean” drinks deep upon these influences creating an angular construction of heart-wrenching ebb and flow, whilst “Sons Of Isolation” has an achingly slow build – although its slightly tiresome, it does put one in mind of Russian Circles’ last album, so adds some spice to the mix.

“Life / Ritual”, with bone chimes jangling and tortured chants circling in bouncing echoes around temple walls, disturbs on a whole new level. Somewhere within this band lies a deep rage and here you can feel it cracking through the crust as the vocalists combine to great effect. Then, with a final crackling flourish full of latent feedback, “Sons Of The Ancients” plucks at fresh wounds by cycling two chords until the roars of vocalist/guitarist Nil bring us raging round to an invasive sequence of powerful chugging.

There’s a fascinating range of styles at play here and it marks an enjoyable initial foray. Initially bruising, the impact of it becomes less of an issue with further listens. The so-called “sphere of deep hope” that they wanted to convey within their music is well hidden here, but I certainly felt their passion and it sparked a wide range of emotions ranging from anger to misery.

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2014/11/sedna-st-drown-within/

EP Review: Darkentries - The Make Believe

If you've been paying attention to modern metal of late, you will have noticed that most bands not besotted with retro, are pushing their music forwards with varied attempts at blurring the lines between genres. Some, of course, are taking the concept to the extreme by fusing those lines into a vast wall of sound. South Carolina's Darkentries, contentedly sat on Kylesa's record label, are one of the latter and have drawn influence from such quarters as sludge, hardcore, doom and post-metal to create a blackened, nihilistic cacophony.

What stands out the most here is the production. Recorded with Kris Hilbert at the curiously-titled Legitimate Business Studio, with the mastering taking place over at Audiosiege, the overall impression is of a vital, raw mix loaded with enough echo to bring it back from the brink. Carefully layered within, the powerful, mud-flinging guitars take pride of place at the forefront, the drums sit in the middle distance, and the vocal is left to rant and rave from somewhere out back. It's an odd experience to discover that the gapping between the levels mean you can actually pick out the points where Hampton Dodd's vocals start phasing. Of course, it is exactly because the band don't utilise every inch of space that, inside the sections where instrument drop-outs occur, it all begins to feel slightly removed from the present. Whilst a shame that slight fault does leave them much room for experimentation - hopefully more so when they finally get round to issuing that full-length.

Digging down into the tracks, 'TV Fuzz' shifts from a gentile guitar introduction into pounding black doom. With the vocal lurching between one that pitches mournful shoegaze and another that seems ensconced in inflicting post-hardcore chaos, the effect is intense and shattering. Though 'Honey Eater' and the stunning 'Feedback Funeral' stay on the same path, they muscle up every element. The vocal sinks deeper to create a more resonant, more forbidding atmosphere and finds a red-raw animosity when it gets its 'core on. Even the sludge-packing guitars wind it all down until the buzzing begins to vibrate at the back of your brain. What stands out, is that somewhere amongst all the to-ing and fro-ing, you'll hear strong hints at the kind of ambient, miserabilist post-hardcore peddled by bands like The Elijah or Devil Sold His Soul.

Upping their game, 'I'm Tired Of Being Awake' finds joy in warping the attack; picking up the desert and blowing it back in our faces. In these mere three minutes they find room to echo the emotional, death-addled contortions of Ihsahn and even time to tap out some Mastodon-esque string progressions. '1200-S' is their chthonic monster, emerging from its abyss to rip out some suitably alien roars and illicit agonising screams form its prey. There are also vast open power chords, gutsy basslines and heart-pumping chugs to get on board with. Lyrically, you'll not find much to sink your teeth into with this EP, save perhaps for 'Feedback Funeral' and that repeating disembodied scream of "just bloody kill me" or in the wild-eyed chant of "paradise, paradise" awaiting in '1200-S'.

Understandably short, impossibly indulgent, strangely exhilarating. In a sense, this kind of carefully-constructed lunacy is exactly what we, as disciples of extreme metal, crave. It's music that breaks barriers, retaining an essence of ancient majesty but remaining unafraid to let things get a little ugly and a little twisted. Easy listening this is not, but then this is, in effect, Darkentries' crack at sonic catharsis. Their ball, their rules. The Make Believe represents their own honest attempt to define what modern heavy metal means to them. It will be very interesting to see what kind of unholy noises they can conjure up in the future.

Also online @ Scratch The Surface = http://www.scratchthesurface-webzine.com/2014/03/darkentries-make-believe-review.html

Album Review: The Elijah – I Loved I Hated I Destroyed I Created

Can you begin to imagine what a combination of ambient and screamo might sound like? Perhaps a combination of hardcore and shoegaze? I think my brain just got knotted trying to pull the two concepts together. And yet we know there are bands out there, right now, attempting to meld the two concepts into one. In fact, I have one here in front of me. They are the UK’s The Elijah and they are in the business of carefully creating softly, shuffling, rangy pieces, only to pepper them with vicious, derisive howls in an attempt to drive their true intentions home. Their music is mind-bogglingly vast. If you were to describe any band as epic it would be this band. Rather than merely listen to their songs, you live them. But is the gap between polished smooth and hacked rough just too wide to suck you in; to keep you hooked?

The Elijah cite influences like Olafur Arnalds’ control of classical and electronic ambience and the experimental post-rock of This Will Destroy You but, more pertinently, the combination of feather-light touch and slap in the chops instantly draws comparison with Amia Venera Landscape and Devil Sold His Soul and, to an extent, Between The Screams and Rinoa.

Recorded in an abandoned country mansion in Shropshire, the band have utilised the structures’ natural reverb; the music reaching deep into those resonant recesses to dredge up a complex, textured and inherently bleak sound which they use to blanket the listener with. Whilst the instrumental beauty of “In Regret” is a track that allows for those many textures to be dissected, with its metronomic sweeping bows and harsh, hammering strings, the album’s heart and soul lies in the vocals. They sit atop this multi-layered wall of gently-shifting emotion like bricks and mortar on concrete foundations. Dan Tomley is the screamer, providing the blocky, vein-bulging angst, whilst Mike McGough is the crooner, the binding agent, smothering the cracks with a dark, sweeping sorrow.

Back to that question and here we are being sucked in by “In Misery”. Closing your eyes it’s easy to picture a turbulent, boiling surface of a horizon-filling ocean. When the moment arrives for Tomley’s roars to cut in they come without apology – “I can barely breathe, I can barely speak”, he falteringly croaks. Yet here, surrounded by gut-wrenching pain, they feel integral. Tracks like “In Death” and “I Hated” benefit similarly with “The thought that I have torn the smile from your pale-skinned face” being a barbed lyric that will worm its way in deep. However, throw those screams into direct conflict with McGough’s subtle hues, as they do at the very peak of “I Loved” and those foundations begin to sink, the cracks reappear and their is a sudden loss of cohesion between each element. The levels become overloaded and the listener can find thereselves overwhelmed as the basic instinct for “fight or flight” is triggered. That takes some getting used to, but those who stick with this can learn to stay hooked and possibly even love this. I’ll admit, I ran away like a little girl and it was a while before I crept back from behind the couch to press the “play” button once more.

Ultimately, it’s not the aggressively maudlin content or the clashing vocals that irk the most, it’s the repetitious nature of the tones and hues that leaves somewhat of a bad taste in the mouth. The Elijah have produced a debut album with sharp claws and hackles that are quick to raise during its darkest, most volatile moods. All well and good but, by my reckoning, they need to show a little more control and a touch more ingenuity if they are to stand out from their peers. Prepare accordingly.

Also online @ The NewReview = http://thenewreview.net/reviews/the-elijah-i-loved-i-hated-i-destroyed-i-created