Soul Dissolution - Stardust

By Hera Vidal. Oh, boy, where do I begin with this one? Right off the bat, don’t be fooled by the way the album cover and the first track look and sound like. It might be a set-up for something atmospheric and cosmic that sounds like

By Hera Vidal.


Oh, boy, where do I begin with this one?

Right off the bat, don’t be fooled by the way the album cover and the first track look and sound like. It might be a set-up for something atmospheric and cosmic that sounds like the myriad of atmospheric black metal without substance, but the track “Circle of Torment” jumps straight into what I like to call Woods of Ypres territory. While Woods of Ypres was highly atmospheric and sad, “Circle of Torment” takes that essence and dials it back a bit, emphasizing the bite of atmospheric black metal and letting it assault you throughout its run. Granted, there are moments of reprieve – there is a soft yet tonal reverb – but the music remains constant throughout the track, a testament to Soul Dissolution’s sonic aesthetic and their preference for long, repetitive passages of music that hold the listener’s attention. There are a lot of sonic references to Woods of Ypres; in fact, some of the guitar parts sound a little similar. However, they are able to add their own flair to it, as it lacks the deep, guttural sadness that was prevalent in Woods of Ypres.

Despite this, there is something highly emotive about the way everything is set up. Everything, from the musical structure to the actual layering of the music and vocals, is constructed to maximize the emotions behind it. There is awe, wonder, and confusion all rolled into a spectacular cohesion that you can’t shake off. You can only sit there in bewilderment and splendor as the album plays, as you hear footsteps walking through the woods, as you wonder where else Stardust will take you. As you come to that thought, Stardust takes a sharp right turn and begins to show you a more playful side to its music – if you can call anything atmospheric playful – one where you are allowed to bask in the guitars’ warm notes and the contrast between what sounds like the keyboards and the vocals that echo throughout the album.

Unlike most atmospheric black metal I am acquainted with, where either vocals or the instruments add to the atmosphere of the music, neither of those are actually what creates the atmosphere. Something about the presence of the album’s aesthetic and its triumphant mix of emotions and catharsis really speaks to the listener. There is something wonderfully bizarre that is worth paying attention to, something that hides underneath the orchestrations, the emotions, and the harsh vocals that reverbs through the music. Perhaps that is the key to Stardust: a bizarre feeling that cannot be explained and needs to be explored via this album as a medium.

All in all, Stardust is an album that takes everything atmospheric black metal stands for and throws it out the window, melding aesthetics together that creates substance and memorable music that stands with you until the end of its run. I will definitely come back to this album at a later time. However, in the meantime, I can only say good things about it. In the crossroads of bewilderment and aesthetic, Stardust exists, filling a void that I don’t think anyone saw until this moment.

Evoken - Hypnagogia

By Karen A. Mann. I admit I didn’t know much about World War I until recently. But with the recent centennial of the war, which began with the 1914 assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand, I’ve gained a new appreciation for this most grisly of wars

By Karen A. Mann

Artwork by Adam Burke.

I admit I didn’t know much about World War I until recently. But with the recent centennial of the war, which began with the 1914 assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand, I’ve gained a new appreciation for this most grisly of wars, in which national identities were born as empires collapsed. Millions of average men died in squalid trenches as horrifying new technologies, including the use of poisonous gas, the widespread use of the machine gun and the armored tank were deployed. Not only did the earth became a putrid wasteland of unburied corpses but the war was directly responsible for spreading the virulent Spanish Flu, which killed millions around the world. World War I was so bad that it was called the War to End All Wars, because people thought that certainly no war could be worse. Instead, the political instability unleashed continues, like an unbroken thread of terror, in parts of Europe and the Middle East to this day.

It’s against this hellish backdrop that New Jersey’s long-running elegiac funeral doom quintet Evoken have set their latest album, Hypnagogia. On a battlefield during that horrible war, an anonymous soldier muses bitterly on his impending death. He records his thoughts in a journal, then strikes a deal with a malevolent spirit to leave part of his soul behind to attach itself to -- and drive to suicide -- whomever chances to read the journal. With each successive death the spirit becomes stronger and more deadly, weaving an unbroken tale of terror through the century.

Evoken has always been completely unafraid to push the boundaries of metal further than they can go, and then some. I had the distinct pleasure of seeing them perform an experimental set with Merzbow for the Hopscotch Festival in Raleigh back in 2013. Brian Sanders, who contributed cello for their 2012 release, Atra Mors, returns on Hypnagogia, and at times plays a starring role. The album begins with an ominous string arrangement from Sanders, along with a distant chorale. The feeling is deep, dark and foreboding; lush and natural. A peal of squalling feedback introduces the crushing mechanical elements, bringing to mind primitive iron tanks rolling over and subjugating all that is natural about the land. Through eight songs, the band chugs through scathing doom with gnarled, blackened bits, serpentine riffage and eerie keyboard melodies, and pastoral, mournful passages with evocative vocals and stately string arrangements.

The album includes two short instrumentals -- aptly titled "Hypnagogia" and "Hypnopompic," that act as interludes in the action and represent the soldier's death and rebirth. The term “hypnagogia” refers to hallucinations a lot of us experience in the moments just before sleep when our bodies are paralyzed but our minds are still active. By contrast, “hypnopompic” is when we have paralyzed hallucinations upon waking up. If you’ve ever woken up in the middle of the night thinking there’s an intruder in your bedroom and unsuccessfully tried to scream, you’ve had a hypnopompic hallucination. Both songs have a hallucinogenic, disorienting quality and provide fitting bookends to the album's most adventurous song, "Ceremony of Bleeding, " which features a haunting, operatic choir ensemble in the middle. The album’s final song, “The Weald of Perished Men,” begins with ambient noise of crickets, wind and the sound of digging before easing into a clean, uplifting guitar melody that weaves its way through the entire song. A mournful cello and keyboard passage follows, with the soldier questioning what will become of him, then segues into crushing guitars and scathing vocals.

Fittingly released on Nov. 9, just before the centenary of war’s end on Nov. 11, 2018, Hypnagogia is an elegantly bleak, yet strangely warm and uplifting, ode to one lonely, anonymous man who found an ingenious way to live on, while repaying the world for the futility of his death.

Cult Leader - A Patient Man

By Justin C. Cult Leader, formed by the members of the defunct Gaza, made relatively quick work of establishing themselves as their own band, not just a continuation of Gaza with a roster change. Gaza officially disbanded in 2013, and Cult Leader put

By Justin C.


Cult Leader, formed by the members of the defunct Gaza, made relatively quick work of establishing themselves as their own band, not just a continuation of Gaza with a roster change. Gaza officially disbanded in 2013, and Cult Leader put out Nothing for Us Here the very next year, followed by an EP and full-length in 2015. They took a little bit of a pause after that, but 2018's A Patient Man was worth the wait. It finds the band expanding their sound even further, while still building on their hard-to-categorize baseline.

You'll see Cult Leader still labeled with variations of "hardcore" (and that seems to keep them out of The Metal Archives, for good or ill), but I think that's just a holdover from their Gaza days. What I hear in the band now is a mix of sludge's heaviness but without the murk, and grind's technicality but without the extreme level of chaos that tag usually implies. Add to that a new level of expansiveness in song structure, and A Patient Man makes for an album that took me many listens to wrap my head around.

The album starts off with a blaze. Punch your steering wheel and shout along with the growled refrain "HEAL ME!" in the opener, "I Am Healed." "Curse of Satisfaction" follows a similar path of tech-ish brutality, but the third track, "Isolation in the Land of Milk and Honey," starts to showcase a wider palette of sounds as it progresses, and the the album takes a hard right turn at "To: Achlys." This track prominently features a cleanly sung baritone, and it's a vocal style that dominates "To: Achlys" and the following track, "In a World of Joy."

The clean singing isn't new to Cult Leader. They used it in "A Good Life" on A Lightless Walk, and the haunting closing track of Useless Animal, "You Are Not My Blood," also used similar styling. What immediately struck me with "To: Achlys," though, is how prominent the clean singing is. To my ear, this style was pushed back in the mix a little bit in the band's previous albums, but here it is front and center, often with very minimalist backing.

It's a bold choice. "To: Achlys" and "In a World of Joy" are two of the longer songs in the album, and they veer into what I might call "dark folk" for a solid 12 minutes smack in the middle. I wasn't sure how I felt about this at first, but the more I listened, the more I was willing to follow them. These songs are filled with regret and isolation, and the vocals are earnest and almost primitive in a way. It's not a virtuoso vocal performance, but I don't think that would have been nearly as effective. I'd also argue that, in spite of the drastic stylistic difference, there's never any sense that these tracks are experiments. It's the same band, and maintaining your band's core identity in two very different modes is no easy task.

Cult Leader may switch back to the heavy churn after those tracks, like in "Share My Pain," but they're not done with their new expansiveness. The title track and the album closer, "The Broken Right Hand of God," are truly something else, and I'd be lying if I said I'd had a chance to fully absorb them. Listening to this album has been a journey for me, and I'm curious if it will get the attention it deserves in a distracted, I'll-listen-to-30-seconds-and-then-move-on scene, but I hope it does get that attention.