Shades of grey dully greet us from the cover art of this four track EP. There is mention of Autumn and October and there is a chill air of drab despair about all this before we even get to the music and hear what it is like. Black Autumn is the work of one M Krall from Germany. The outfit did start off as a duo but between 2003 and now and a fair few recordings including no less than four full length albums the two became one and moved from playing more symphonic black metal to that of a more doom and ambient persuasion.
The four tracks here are all very mature and starting with almost classical strains, the title track moves into some lush naturistic acoustic guitar work. This builds and become a permanent fixture of the music unravelling and intertwining to create a large melody which is both triumphant and depressive in equal measures. Vocals come into play on this first track but strike as incidental and brief, it is mainly left for the instruments to do the talking. This they do in an almost poetic fashion, gentle and in no hurry yet with an epic sort of backbone despite the fact that songs are all only around the 5 minute mark. ‘Dortke Mor’ strums in and keyboards waft in the background, then it crashes in with a heavy slow to mid paced flow about things. Again there is plenty of atmosphere and despite lack of vocals the spoken word sample adds to the meandering fretwork with purposeful effect. Flexing muscles this builds to a powerful tumult and is matched by a mighty sounding production too. An almost folk etched twang sees in ‘Dead As Martyrs March’ and an enthrallingly rich and sombre melody blooms forth, drawing you in and entrancing in its flow. Here we get some harsh sounding gravid vocal rasps but they are not overbearing as they dwell firmly in the background of the piece. With a splash of delicate piano we move to final track ‘A Silver Line Of Light’ which has a certain pine-scented, shoe-gaze feel to it that draws you into the deep forest before getting rough and rugged and growling away like a lumberjack who has missed out on breakfast and is determined to chop his way through.
Taking in considerable atmospheres and emotions this is an expansive EP which despite its running time has a huge amount of depth about it. It does not have me thinking of namedropping any other bands either which really works in its favour and this is another band whose work I should obviously discovered before now and hope to listen to more in the future.
(7.5/10 Pete Woods)
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