Sentient Ruin Laboratories

The debut album from Italian blackened death-doom band Aphotic is a mesmerizing trip into the unexplored, Abyssgazer.

Aphotic is a new band, coming together in 2020 when like-minded musicians from existing heavy groups decided they wanted to do something a bit different. To wit, they had the “intent of constructing world-building, deeply atmospheric death metal soundtracking a philosophical and eschatological concept revolving around the expansion and ultimate fate, and death, of our universe.” That is a tall order, but after listening to the album a couple of times, I think they might have done it.

“Endzeit I” is a short lead-in piece that sets up the first main song, “Spectral Degradation,” which begins with a barrage of battering percussion meant to knock you down, followed by a midtempo death metal assault that is dark, murky, and entirely satisfying. The sound of calling disembodied voices will live in your mind ever after. “Cosmivore” is tentative at first, but not for long. Interdimensional suffering can be heard and felt as the growling vocals carry the story forward. This is a heavy, monstrous song. “Deathward And Beyond” has a tilted doom framing. It is a completely different beast.

After another interlude, the second triplet begins with the title track, “Abyssgazer,” a mystical entreaty. The swirling, swarming voices are in full force, and they menace the trudging doom. Excellent. “Horizonless” is a high-energy assault with masterful layers and sagacity, while “Depths Call Depths” is more of a soldiering rumbler, getting the job done with force and dread resolve. After a final interlude (which is the most disturbing of the three by far), the ending appears: “Chasmous.” Enchantingly gloomy, this one resonated most with me, although the entire set is excellent. This album is my first time listening to Aphotic – it is their debut, after all – and now they have my attention. Recommended.

Abyssgazer is out in all the usual formats on Friday, March 24^th through Sentient Ruin Laboratories in the US, and Nuclear Winter Records in Europe. You can order your preferred format at the links below.

Links.

Bandcamp, https://sentientruin.bandcamp.com/album/abyssgazer

Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/aphoticomega

Sentient Ruin Laboratories, http://sentientruin.com/main

Nuclear Winter Records, https://nuclearwinterrecords.com/shop/

Death-doom metal band Assumption return with a tale as old as time on Hadean Tides.

Beginning ten years ago in Palermo, Sicily, Assumption is a doom metal band that works with death metal intonations and classic metal influences to produce thought-provoking and sometimes esoteric heavy music. The release of a demo and subsequent EP lead finally to the debut full-length album Absconditus in 2018. Hadean Tides is their second long-player.

The concepts behind the music are indeed hoary and mysterious. The band comments about it on their Bandcamp page as follows. “‘Hadean’ is the informal name given to the first geological era of our planet. It can be seen as a non-time of continual accretion, liquefaction, destruction and dissolution of a barely formed globe. Today only a few, 4+ billion years-old zircons from the Hadean have been found. These represent a silent witness to a mysterious eon that no sentient being would ever endure, in no way, on a physical plane. This ancestral magmatic dimension, intertwined with the symbolic influence of poems by William Butler Yeats, Dylan Thomas, Thomas Stearns Eliot and Rainer Maria Rilke … informs the ideas, sounds and intentions contained within this new album.” If you are looking for meaning, this is the place to start.

The music is as advertised: doom and death metal. In the slower, doom-oriented moments that dominate the album, the compositions place size and scale in priority positions, ladling drama heavily upon the boiling stew. This is evident from the very beginning with “Oration” and is demonstrated repeatedly throughout. “Submerged By Hadean Tides” is created particularly adeptly, lacing classic metal homages in the layers and building mighty walls with granite riffs. “Daughters Of The Lotus” is set at a funeral doom pace in its first half. At the five minute mark the music breaks loose in an overwhelming flood energetic emotion, then folds back into the doom. Darkly, beautifully done.

“Breath Of The Dedalus” is a mood piece, and what a dreary mood it sets with the effective use of eerie choral. “Triptych” is creepy and bizarre, with spare, clear spoken words that stands in contrast to the usual gruff vocalizations on the record. The final song is the fifteen-minute epic “Black Trees Waving.” It is an unsentimental journey into the abyss of distant time. The expressed ideas cling to you as they roll along, laying claim to your attention and consciousness. It is a wakening experience. Highly recommended.

Hadean Tides is out on Friday, May 20^th. Many formats are available from Sentient Ruin Laboratories in the US and Everlasting Spew Records in Europe. Links below.

Links.

Bandcamp, https://assumption.bandcamp.com/album/hadean-tides

Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/assumptiondoom/

Sentient Ruin Laboratories, http://sentientruin.com/main

Everlasting Spew Records, https://everlastingspew.com/

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Aphotic, Abyssgazer (Sentient Ruin 2023)

Assumption, Hadean Tides (Sentient Ruin 2022)