Ewigkeit

The name — Ewigkeit — is German (for "eternity”), the musician is British (James Fogarty/Mr. Fog), and the music is all over the place. The product of one man and his studio, Radio Ixtlan is Ewigkeit’s fourth full-length, and first for Earache Records. The pieces making up these nine tracks range from programmed rhythms to tribal chants, heavy rock beats to electronic blips, doom-laden guitar riffs to sampled voices, deep mournful howls to spacey atmospheric keyboards. If the album provides a disjointed listening experience, it’s not from the creator’s lack of skill. Radio Ixtlan travels smoothly across the soundscape of varied elements that make up its whole but its diversity prevents you from just laying back and getting lost in the vibe. A pervading philosophical gloominess lands Ewigkeit at the goth/doom realm, but Radio Ixtlan remains far removed from despair, harnessing our obsessions with both past and future and grounding them firmly in the now.