May 24, 2013

Apocynthion - Sidereus Nuncius

Review by Majbritt Levinsen.

Artwork by Fursy Teyssier (Les Discrets)

Alcest and Les Discret are two groups I return to ever so often for my fix of dark melancholic out-of-this-world sounding songs. Now I can add Apocynthion to this small elite group. They have the same melancholic spacy mood hanging over the tracks.

Apocynthion are from Spain and plays a blend of post-black metal/post-rock with a grinding spacy shoegaze guitar sound and a soundscape that will send you out into outer space. The singer W. blends clean singing, screams, spoken word and rough screaming vocals (at some points it reminds me of Dani Filth) and it works really well I have to say. The bass is audible which is a major plus in my book and goes very well with the gritty guitars. The drums are mesmerizing and I find myself tuning into them and just enjoy the steady beats and patterns, completely forgetting about the rest of the music.

The songs hold many interesting passages, and there is enough to listen to for more than one listen-through. I really enjoy music, where I can just focus on one instrument at the time and get a new experience every time I listen to it, and Sidereus Nuncius offers just that.

The album title Sidereus Nuncius is derived from the first publication about the observations of space done through a telescope and was written by Galileo Galilei in 1610. Also the bands name, Apocynthion, is space related as it is the point where a planet or a spacecraft, in orbit around the moon, is the farthest away from the moon. When you read the lyrics you understand that also here lies a fascination for the endless space surrounding us. It’s like they were spawned while laying on a vast field at night, staring up into the dark endless, ever expanding, universe, where nothing else but the wind and the sound of nocturnal creatures interrupts the vacuum of loneliness and allows thoughts to wander far and wide. Pondering about our place in it all - how small and insignificant we are in the bigger scale of it all.

This is well composed music that will not let you down and from a debut album I’m only hoping for more to come in the future.


[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

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