After last year’s complex and exhilarating ‘III’ the man behind this impressive black metal project has pressed on with a flurry of releases. Unlike many one man black metal bands, where the number of splits and EPs almost feels like a form of musical Tourette’s, these have all been quite different from the main events. The Gnosis EP is no exception – attaching itself to a single musical theme before unfolding in subtle ways that slowly begin to take form like the roots of a fabled tree.
Gnosis is the second in a three-part series beginning with last May’s cosmic exploration Voyager, although there’s no immediately obvious connection other than these EPs are supposed to be aural, perhaps even whimsical, pastiches into musical and philosophical themes. Neither reaches the heady highs and introspective depths of III. But I’m guessing they’re not supposed to. It’s perhaps not surprising that he wanted to pursue something a little less rigorously after such a monumental work, which by his own account was a fraught six-year production experience.
May’s Voyager, so far an independent, digital-only release which probably reflects Ayloss’ feelings about the potential audience interest outside his immediate circle of fans, was a very relaxed, dreamy piece of music. It was enjoyable enough even if the usual hallmarks of Spectral Lore were largely absent – it was a keyboard-driven work for a start; laid back, ambient and felt almost cathartic.
Gnosis continues in a similar vein in that it is contemplative even though it is more charged than Voyager and driven by some mesmerising guitar work. But I can see why he’s confined this to ‘EP’ status despite the 50 minute length. The exploration remains well within a set musical concept even if this time it reaches higher artistic altitudes than Voyager. The vocals, when they make an appearance at all, are well in the background making this more or less an instrumental work. The theme is very tightly organised around Eastern melodies and philosophy. The most immediate comparison I can make is that the entire EP sounds like the more ambient, unhurried, considered parts of Melechesh. Anyone who likes the sound of that is probably going to like this a lot – the huge climatic mood of pentatonic scales given the lift of Ayloss’s obvious knack for huge arrangements and perfect production.
The music doesn’t so much present itself to you as smoke out of the speakers snake-like as if it was being conjured from a thought or a spell. The Spectral Lore characteristics – the black metal tension, the progressive positivity but also the sheer amount of activity in one or two or the tracks – are all here. Layer upon layer of guitar whether it be the lingering notes of acoustic picking, rumbling distortion, tremolo and soaring lead guitars. Whereas his full lengths have all been increasingly about darkness passing into all-encompassing light, these EPs are much more gently explorative and straightforwardly life affirming. There’s black metal somewhere in Gnosis – but very little blackness at all.
The most complex and typically Spectral Lore moment is probably A God Made of Flesh and Consciousness – a rollercoaster of a track that manages to hit right onto what you might expect from Ayloss. Melodies trail in and out, riffs surge from within and the strands of guitar clash like a billowing orchestra. The peaks are like gliding journeys through the atmosphere and the troughs are like the watching the sun’s rays hitting the lapping waves of the sea shore.
My final realisation is that the ‘eastern’ vibe that provides the backbone to this is not really the point. It’s more just a muse for Ayloss’s latest philosophical and musical journey – just as the synthesisers were on the last release. Gnosis is strangely his most accessible work to date and yet it also perhaps, as the Mona Lisa-like face on the front of the album suggests – may also his most enigmatic. Either way – keep track. Spectral Lore is a journey like few others in metal at the moment. The only problem is that it might actually make everything else look a little dull.
(8/10 Reverend Darkstanley)
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