Umbra
(Ván Records)
42:08min
From the moment this album begins the listener is thrown into a vortex of musical chaos and sucked down into a dark cavernous musical underworld. And for just over 40 minutes taken on a journey through a soundscape full of deep bellowing coarse growls, soaring clean vocal bursts, blasting blistering bludgeoning percussion, razor sharp riffing, hefty basslines with the ever present layers of keys and sound effects adding to the atmosphere. This is very otherworldy sounding, there is no other word that I can find to best describe the musical maelstrom that has been created here. The furious blasting and lightning fast riffing do give way to more slower, melodic, clean passages and interludes throughout which make the re-emergence of the faster uptempo and pounding heavier parts sound even more destructive and devastating in their delivery as you are thrown out from the eye of the musical storm into a whirlwind of sound which is huge in proportion and depth and is crushing and hypnotic in its intensity. There is a diverse mix of tempos which keep the journey into ALMYRKVI’s musical cosmos interesting with its constant twists and turns and multi faceted layers. An ominous swirling aural deluge of blackness engulfs the speakers and will only lift once this cloudburst of musical pandemonium has passed into the distance. Atmospheric and aggressive in equal measure. Malevolently majestic. www.facebook.com/almyrkvi, www.van-records.de
Kat "Shevil" Gillham