Ethereal Shroud – They Became The Falling Ash (2015)

Artist: Ethereal Shroud

Album: They Became The Falling Ash

Label: Unsigned/Independent

It is impossible for me to discuss this record honestly and objectively, so in the interest of academic honesty I must disclose that I like this artist an awful bit. And my appreciation – as far as I can tell – goes deeper than mere music. I am reminded of this brief thought by St Augustine recorded in his great classic work Confessions regarding the death of a close friend:

Sun Worship – Elder Giants (2014)

For a band called Sun Worship, the material presented here far from bright and warm and is instead pretty fucking dark. This German black metal group have laid out a 4 song, just under 37 minute long descent into sheer depression and melancholy on this impressive debut.
Sun Worship play a heavily atmospheric style of black metal in a somewhat minimalistic nature, similar in style to the US’ Cascadian black metal scene combined with the icy harshness of Europe’s more atmospheric black metal bands (Burzum and the like); the music here is atmospheric in the sense that everything about this album oozes burden, depression and despondency. These atmospheres are conjured up through the use of slow, sorrow laden tremolo picked riffs, fast drumming that hangs in the back of the music (adding to and emphasising the despondency of it all) and some extremely depressive and wretched black metal shrieks. Sections of each song flow between tremolo riffs and blasts to slower and crushing chords/drums effectively and without feeling jarring, helping the general depressing atmosphere feel more dynamic without slipping into poor song writing standards.

The song writing appears to be focused purely on creating the dark feelings that leak out of the album and as such the 4 songs don’t have any real distinction between them. That isn’t to say that each song is a carbon copy of another (aside from the last track, which is a dark synth atmospheric track) nor does it feel that way, but rather that each song is less an individual element and is instead a smooth progression from the previous. This leaves the album feeling cohesive in its progression which allows the album to crush any light from your world unhindered. The album doesn’t suffer from any production issues and each instrument is distinctive but not overruling of any other, which is always a good thing to see happen with a band’s debut.

This an extremely strong debut from a band that has basically no underground recognition, most likely due to the fact that no information about the band members or anything really seems to exist and is such to an extent that this album almost entirely leaped out from thin air to surprise the few people paying attention. There are no major flaws resting within this album as far as I can tell; there’s no production issues, the song writing is up to an extremely high standard, the instruments and wretched vocals invoke the perfect despondency for what Sun Worship are trying to achieve and the band crush all issues with unoriginality (there’s no real new concepts presented here, musically or otherwise) by invoking such a fucking dark and depressing album so well.

A highly recommended listen for people who have a burning desire to slowly stifle out the light in their life with a perfectly crafted black metal album.