Style: Atmospheric black metal
Primary Emotions/Themes: I am formless, I am without body our mind, I am one with the void, I am nothingness
Thoughts: Bialywilk is a band that I'm new to. I picked up a few of their albums recently because I liked what I heard. The combination of dark ambient with spacy black metal is always a win in my book, and a style that is not explored enough in black metal.
Zmora starts out with a minimalistic dark ambient intro that is the audio equivalent of floating in a void. There is something around me, but I have no idea what it is. It is formless, it is beyond what my senses can grasp... but it is s o m e t h i n g. I love this start. It welcomes in the deep nothingness that brings peace while still having that ever present fear of the unknown mixed in.
When the metal finally does come in it's a slow transition. The music goes from formless and directionless to focused. The guitars have a vast and spacious feel to them, there are subtle keyboards in the background adding to the atmosphere as well. The drums never seek to overpower the music, but rather add an important backing to the melodies and riffs provided by the guitars.The vocals are a bit of a low roar with a lot of reverb on them. This, again, adds to the feeling of the music expanding beyond the original scope of the instruments.
The songs bleed into each other without a break, leading to the album to sound more like one thirty minute long song rather than a collection of tracks. I love this effect, it helps keep the album cohesive and brings the immersion level up even higher.
Zmora is a great find for my collection. It's the perfect length for a short visit into the stars right before having to deal with the troubles of this earth once again.
Written July 22nd 2024
No comments:
Post a Comment