Aesthetic Death

The backbone of this album is repetitious funeral doom supplemented with synthwave-style electronics. But despite possessing all the ingredients of a band like Esoteric (stripped back to its bare bones, mind you) the bulk of the album doesn’t consist in overtly trippy or psychedelic music. On the contrary, the riffs are blunt and the guitar tone is brash, typically lacking delay and modulation effects, with a blaring midrange that initially detracts from the mesmeric atmosphere. Ultimately though, this seems part of a deliberately minimalist approach that, if you can allow yourself to be carried along by the inexorable currents of its bleakness, is no less trance-inducing. “I make some noise, to hear the real silence” -- a poetical gem and clear statement of what this band manages to achieve with its relatively straight-forward methods. The effect is completed by hypnotic, bell-like clean guitar melodies humming with the natural distortion of the fretboard. “Stoner funeral doom” wouldn’t be a bad genre tag, if one was called for.
Rating: ★★★★★