The first release since 2011's Grimoire sees Pepijn Caudron operating within a very minimal and very effective elemental range. With track titles ranging from "Denial" to "Acceptance," the table is set for an austere banquet of muted strings, drums that seem to emanate from within the body cavity and, over all, quiet in all forms from post-shock to coiled and seething. When an eruption breaks the stillness, as with the string storm on "Anger," the violence is like a brick to the ear, perhaps psychically expected but no less blunt and paralyzing.
If "The Summoning," the longest and most musically narrative track, were a film sequence, it would be a flashback revealing the cause for the rest of the story's aftermath. Its creeping build of distant cymbal washes, approaching drum toms and horror movie woodwinds eventually give way to full-on doom metal guitar chords and the banshee wail from guest vocalist Amenra. "Acceptance" is the hanging echo that closes the album, with a simple piano theme accompanied by high hovering string drones and the watery reverb of pedal depressions. It's a masterful work full of dark and inescapable musical truths.
(Miasmah)If "The Summoning," the longest and most musically narrative track, were a film sequence, it would be a flashback revealing the cause for the rest of the story's aftermath. Its creeping build of distant cymbal washes, approaching drum toms and horror movie woodwinds eventually give way to full-on doom metal guitar chords and the banshee wail from guest vocalist Amenra. "Acceptance" is the hanging echo that closes the album, with a simple piano theme accompanied by high hovering string drones and the watery reverb of pedal depressions. It's a masterful work full of dark and inescapable musical truths.