vidnaObmana

The pitch black sound sculptor returns with this latest disc to complete the third instalment in the Dante Trilogy. Legacy, preceded by albums Tremor and Spore, opens with a spoken-sung monologue over strains of dark ambience. This cut, "Canto,” is by far the most uneven track of the eight, and as a listener, one can’t help but think that had this opening dialogue been presented spoken (without the almost-sung attributes), the track would be much more potent in opening the record. The rest of the disc stretches out into a vast but subtle instrumental landscape: lumbering, slow and bleak. Sometimes the repetitious drums all but drown out the drones that lie in wait beneath them, and sometimes the drones rise up in their subtle macabre glory and steal the cut for themselves, while at other moments you may think you hear a Middle Eastern musical flavour hidden within the layers. Occasionally, vidnaObmana throws in another twist and feeds his listener a stark and painfully haunting melody. Legacy is not a perfect ambient offering; there are moments the transitions feel too subtle or too slow, which inevitably brings the inherent repetition in the songs to the forefront. One also wonders if some of the things that feel lost in the mix were done so intentionally and if so, to what purpose. Legacy works best as a deliberate soundtrack to a bleak world, its ambient background strains will darken any room or castle or sombre gathering.