Drown - Subaqueous

By Master of Muppets. If space is mankind's final frontier, the ocean's depths must be something like the birthplace of the end. To some extent it is where life as we know it first began its misguided adventures on Earth, a plane of existence close to our hearts by evolutionary proxy

By Master of Muppets.

Artwork by Adam Burke/Nightjar Art.

If space is mankind's final frontier, the ocean's depths must be something like the birthplace of the end. To some extent it is where life as we know it first began its misguided adventures on Earth, a plane of existence close to our hearts by evolutionary proxy; in another sense it is a world of its own which exists entirely beyond our grasp, elusive and magical in its indomitable vastness. It's a fantastical realm where the cold realities of science and the infinite possibilities of the imagination walk hand in hand into the dark, and many artists have attempted to turn this world we cannot see into something we can hear instead. One-man metal manufacturing monster Markov Soroka (Tchornobog, Aureole, Krukh) more than meets this challenge through the massive, immersive music of Drown; it turns out that the crushing darkness of funeral doom provides a perfect tonal palette for painting the depths of our oceans into a vivid soundscape, and Subaqueous - Soroka's sophomore slab of sea-centric slow-burners - is a beautifully merciless rendering of such a scene, one that you have zero business missing out on.

The point of this genre is to create something that stifles and swallows the listener, and where better to do that than at the bottom of the ocean? Soroka seizes this sonic potential to further a tale that began with Drown's debut, Unsleep, chronicling the drowning of an unnamed protagonist and drawing it out into a collection of aquatic metaphors and tempestuous funeral doom. Purveyors of such aren't known for being particularly sympathetic to the attention spans or time restraints of others, and Drown is no exception. Subaqueous is divided into two colossal tracks, the first of which ("Drowned VI: Mother Cetacean") boasts a duration just shy of 22 minutes while the second ("Drowned VII: Father Subaqueous") clocks in a few seconds over that mark. Both songs cultivate their own mood and atmosphere, achieving a perfect foil relationship along the way, yet the pair are equal in terms of sheer oppressive lethality.

At first blush, "...Mother Cetacean" is the gentler of the two, ushering in its chapter with a serene dance of reverberant atmospherics and gently coruscating guitars. Just as bioluminescence and the pale sheen of pigmentation's absence color the watery deep, a deceptively blithe melody dances along a current of subterranean tone and sustain, instilling the surrounding dark with a sense of vibrancy. However, the dance is deceptive in these dangerous depths - this is the bottom of the ocean, after all; despite the almost jocular nature of "...Mother Cetacean", it is still funeral doom. Guttural bellows and thunderous distortion are interwoven into the ebullience with fluid cohesion, maintaining a delicate balance of wonder and unease perfectly befitting the ocean's floor. Here there is violent life playing a deadly game, and what fleeting light can be found offers just as little in the way of safety as the shadows that linger further beyond in the pitch black hostility of "...Father Subaqueous".

The second, titular half of Subaqueous makes no attempt to convey, promote or else harbor life of any kind; "...Father Subaqueous" is pitiless and unforgiving, a masterful manifestation of the inhospitable realm of pressure and darkness that lurks beneath us all. Here, the growls become ungodly shrieks, and the churning low end rumbling of the guitars has erupted into a monolithic expanse of unbridled fury. There is nothing playful or pleasant here, only a 22 minute view of the screaming maw of the void. Though it is unclear to this reviewer just what exactly might be happening to the story's protagonist at this particular point, it is all but certainly all but unbearable. Where "...Mother Cetacean" brings us somewhere new by incorporating elements which are almost diametrically opposed to funeral doom's customary bleakness, "...Father Subaqueous" harnesses every bit of incessant wrath known to the genre then dials things up to 11 with a splash of black metal.

Unlike mankind and the oceans that make our invasion of this planet possible, the two tracks which comprise Subaqueous exist in perfect harmony with each other. In the simplest of terms, "...Mother Cetacean" captures the essence of life and light amidst the deepest reaches of said oceans, while "...Father Subaqueous" levels out the album with death and darkness. For an offering rooted in a genre that defies the notion of moderation, Subaqueous is a thing of perfect balance. If funeral-at-sea doom sounds like it'll float your boat and you have 45 minutes to spare - and, frankly, that's a good chunk of us these days - then give Subaqueous a spin. It is well worth your time, and it has already jumped to the top of my personal favorite albums from 2020 thus far.