FROM ASTRAL PLANES "2012 promo" (2012)

band: From Astral Planes album: 2012 promo year: 2012

genres: doom metal, post-metal origin: USA

ENTER THE ASTRAL PLANE

Sometimes one just wakes up in the middle of the night and wonders oneself why some really worth listening music just doesn’t get the attention it should receive. Specially in the circles involving doom metal, being a band followed by a considerable crowd is more eccentric than being a band known by a couple of human beings, it doesn’t matter how nice, original and out of this doomed planet is your music. This is the situation in which From Astral Planes dwells. This extremely underground band hails from Rochester, New York. I ran into this project because of its line-up: drummer and frontman of From Astral Planes is Chris Dalcin, the man behind the now legendary, ultra depressive 90’s band …And Here I Lie. After writing music under the moniker of Elusive Travel (which seems to remain as an active project), Chris Dalcin is back in the stage with From Astral Planes. The project has not much time around, they started out last year and, as far as I know, they have just published a couple of songs and packaged them into this short untitled promo album which is, actually, limited to 250 copies. These two songs are entitled “The Chew of Ropes” and “Lazy Pond”.

From Astral Planes is dark, enigmatic and depressive. Not wedded to down-tempo of doom metal, the sound of this band is far of being foreseeable, monotonous and monolithic. The band seems to aim to sound mysterious and fitting with what one expects to hear when realizes about the band’s name. The guitar work, for example, features clean guitars, nice riffs and solos, claiming to be the element driving the music. Riffing, drum tempo and some solos show a clear influence of Katatonia, perhaps “Tonight’s Decision” era is the most persistent thing that come to my mind by listening to this couple of songs. Some acoustic passages are featured as well in beautiful moments of the songs.

Really interesting are the vocals in this album, a total of three entities haunting the sound of From Astral Planes. They, alongside with a nice keyboard work, set the atmospheric outlook of the band. The first vocal style is a clean enigmatic voice, perhaps evoking Canaan’s Mauro; the second and the third one walk together by the hand during the most extreme passages, they are quite deep growls and harsh black-metalish screams. Actually, some may think that they sound way too brutal for the approach of the music, in the beginning I thought so. Nevertheless, this is one of the things that make the band so interesting. This unique blend of vocals performs elegant and puzzling lyrics. Both songs, share this feeling, but I find “The Chew of Ropes” the most doomed one, it actually features the slowest moment in the album.

From Astral Planes is not afraid of looking back to the past in …And Here I Lie, there are some ties in the sound of both bands, fans of …And Here I Lie will certainly enjoy this one. This album shows a well worked and structured music. I hope the project continues and we can listen to more of them in the short future…

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LENTO "Icon" (2011)

band: Lento album: Icon year: 2011 genres: post-metal origin: Italy

LENTO E POTENTE

I know what you’ll think after reading the genre “post-metal” as I cruelly labeled this album. Sure you have in mind another copy of Neurosis’ sludge metal riffs, long ambient passages, aggressive guttural vocals and melodic clean guitars ornamenting all around. “Post-metal” is, in fact, for lots a cruel and not understood term. Whereas others rather to use the expression “atmospheric sludge metal” some other bands are not clearly defined by this since masters of sludge metal Eyehategod do not come into mind by listening to them. Thus, one can find awfully good bands inside the “post-metal” circles. These last years we have been witness to the growing of this style. And I can tell you that this band, named Lento, is about to become into one of the great names in the genre, since they’ve just forged their own style and had risen from the sea of post-metal acts out there, to incorporate a new approach to typical metal frameworks.

Lento is based in Rome, they’ve actually released two full-length albums back in 2007. Lento is a five-piece band whose line-up calls to attention by featuring three guitarists and nor a vocalist. I never miss a three-guitar band, since it is almost guaranty of a wide guitar effects spectrum and/or a complex technique on them as well as good composition duty. Furthermore, an instrumental band will always depend on how well composed are the guitar lines.

Lento’s latest creation has just been released this year. It is entitled “Icon”. As you can imagine, by the fact of the absence of vocals, this album will sound clearly similar to Pelican. Moreover, I find it closer to their “Australasia” era than to their new stuff. As the name of the band suggest it, the sound of “Icon” can be compared to a huge mastodon that slowly crushes everything on his way. However, although this description draws into a doom metal band, the sound of Lento is more complex and it’s not based on slowness at all. Here drums play a quite important rule. They are direct and multifaceted and so are the guitar riffs too. The structure of Lento’s sound becomes complex and entwined as they vary the moods of the developed ambiance. It is a cave with different passageways, lots of chambers and a considerable amount of darkness. So, you will find ambient tracks, like opening “then” that creates the mysticism at the entrance of the cave. Nonetheless, keyboards don’t appear at main songs. All atmospheres are created by different guitar effects that please my expectations for the three-guitar band. They are heavy and crushing riffs that reach the status of drone metal in several moments. The low tone in guitars attached to the technical intentions in some extracts reminds me to Meshuggah’s djent style, although, dare I say, this album has nothing to do with djent. Lento doesn’t fear to math approach in the guitars, you will hear some clean guitars in lines that sound similar to The Dillinger Escape Plan strange melodies. This is notable in the song “Hymn”. This kind of interaction between guitars let the listener to be unaware of what is to come. Here, where no vocals intervene, are the guitars the instrument that seems to share a conversation. You can even taste some dream-pop style guitars in the song “Throne”, the beautiful echo of this technique is followed by some wordless whispers which I think was a good idea of Lento for this track.

The album flows in such a way that you forget about the existence of a “forward” or “stop” button. Songs are short, about 3 minutes each one, letting the sound to unfurl out. The trip reaches a violent chamber at track 9 “Icon”, where drums and riffs speed up. This kind of uptempo elements are not common in the genre. With the distortion and feedback in the guitars a blast like this sounds extremely powerful. I love this smashing moments, especially the one included in the song “Hymen”, some of the best seconds in the album.

Another good thing about this release is the dark atmosphere that surrounds it. This goes further there than Pelican’s songs, that’s one of the reasons, Lento is far from being a clone of that wonderful band. I’m not only talking about the ambient tracks, but several passages whose melodies on clean guitars and feedback effects will remind us that there is no light in this cave. Some may call the final riffs from “Dyad” as horror-driven guitars. Also the closing moment of the song with the album title is kind of scary.

I have one only problem with this album: it is too short. Just 37 minutes of this haunting music. Lento have developed their own style, with well fixed roots in post-metal, which makes them, in my opinion, an indispensable band in the collection of the genre. Some people have already named them “the new Pelican”. Personally, I think this album is much more effective that many in the scene. There are lots of instrumental sludge bands, North (first EP) and Capricorns come to my mind for example, but, although they are different each other, I can ensure that Lento has also its own style. Check out this album, you’ll not be disappointed.

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CONSECRATION ".avi" (2010)

band: Consecration album: .avi year: 2010 genres: progressive post-metal origin: Serbia

UN BUEN FORMATO PARA STONER METAL

Sé lo que están pensando: “aquí viene otro disco de eso que llaman post-metal, otra imitación de Neurosis”. Pues es justo lo que yo pensé cuando supe de la existencia de este disco, pero en cuanto me propuse a investigar quiénes era en realidad esta banda de Serbia llamada Consecration, me topé con que entre sus miembros se encuentra gente de la banda de doom metal Amaranth. Sí, aquellos doomsters ultra-melódicos que adoraban las partes acústicas y que, en verdad, tenían una forma increíble de escribir letras y música, una de las bandas de doom metal más románticas que he oído (musical, no letrísticamente hablando). Imaginen todo ese impacto emocional en una banda de stoner atmosférico o, como ahora se le suele llamar post-metal. Los miembros de la banda se declaran grandes fans de Anathema y Katatonia (al igual que yo) pero también de Isis. Así, lo que tenemos aquí es un post-metal con fuertes riffs muy stoner, partes bastante psicodélicas con uso de electrónicos pero también guitarras acústicas, partes de prácticamente post-rock puro. No hace mucho tiempo la banda salió de gira con los mismísimos The Ocean que promocionan su más reciente material “Heliocentric”, los miembros del importante colectivo The Ocean describieron el sonido de Consecration como “Kyuss usando teclados”. Una descripción atrevida, sin embargo, nos daremos cuenta que en éste, su segundo larga-duración, existe mucho más que stoner rock con teclados.

“.avi” es el título de este material que hace secuela a “aux” lanzado en el 2008. Lamentablemente no tuve oportunidad de escuchar este material anterior, pero se dice que la banda estaba más orientada a sonar cerca de Opeth, Katatonia e, inclusive, Slowdive. De hecho, se podía ver, en aquellos años, a la banda tocando covers de Sentenced y Opeth en sus presentaciones en vivo. “.avi” no se encuentra tan lejos de aquel pasado, aunque sea difícil de creerlo, Consecration encuentra una relación entre Isis y Anathema. El disco arranca muy stoner y psicodélico con “Aligator”, haciendo referencia a su extraña portada. El vocal Danilo Nikodinovski nos ha demostrado en Amaranth que es un excelente intérprete capaz de darnos voces limpias y guturales. En “.avi” encontraremos prácticamente sólo voces limpias, ellas encajan muy bien con las partes psicodélicas y atmosféricas. Sin embargo, en el track “Idiot Glee” oiremos fuertes guturales, éste es el track más cercano a la realidad del post-metal que conocemos, muy Neurosis. En general, todas las canciones varían entre climax de pesadísimos riffs, partes ambientales a guitarras limpias y momentos psicodélicos. La canción homónima es probablemente la que mejor describa estas combinaciones. Pero la fuerte influencia de Anathema se hace notar en “Somna”, esta canción contiene una gran parte con guitarras acústicas y solos en notas altas, tal como Anathema suele hacerlo. Además, la voz es más melodiosa y tal vez se te venga a la mente Opeth o Porcupine Tree, pero eso no es todo, las voces en el final de la canción están completamente en la onda de Sigur Ros, muy suaves y acompañadas por guitarras en notas altas, una combinación maravillosa, que en lo personal disfruto mucho.

Consecration ha recibido las mejores críticas por parte del círculo del post-metal. “.avi” encuentra el punto medio entre pesadez, psicodelia y melodía. En lo personal, es uno de los discos más interesantes que he oído este año. Recomendable para cualquiera dentro del stoner, el sludge, el post-rock e, inclusive, el progresivo.

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