Dark Essence Records is a Norwegian label that specialises in extreme and black metal, sounds beloved of those wearers of corpse-paint, but subgenres of the music I love that really do not float my boat. As such, for me to review one of their releases is a right old rarity; indeed, the last time I did so was some four years ago, and again, it was care of a release by Five The Hierophant (see Ave Noctum passim). If you are wanting and expecting a barrage of necrotic blast beats, buzz saw guitars, and hellish screams, prepare to be disappointed. If, however, you are willing to immerse yourself in some of the most intriguing and absorbing music, dive in.
‘Through Aureate Void’ is not a formulaic album, and the five tracks, and that term is correct, as the album contains no songs, create an otherworldly score to a yet unrealised horror movie masterpiece. ‘Leaf In The Current’ opens with a wave of electronic effects that have escaped from an early seventies Sci-fi film before the drums fire in with near industrial precision accompanied by echoing strings. After a minute or so the saxophone that is so massive a part of their sonic arsenal joins in with a sleazy and hypnotic refrain that weaves through the rhythms of the number, its occasionally strident cry a counterpoint to a wall of fuzz. A darkly intoned invocation appears after the ten-minute mark, equal parts Hunter S. Thompson and Aleister Crowley at their most stoned and indecipherable; this same voice whispers in parts of the altogether less urgent follow up ‘Fire From Frozen Cloud’, making each sound like different parts of a ceremony to summon forth creatures from a dimension mankind was not meant to know.
‘Berceuse (for Magnetic Sleep)’ follows at an even slower pace, gently beckoning the listener into a slumber found in the darkest of Victorian opium dens, or maybe guiding a somnambulist traveller into the Dreamlands of Lovecraft where impossible wonders and dread terrors could be met at any turn. A lullaby for those who have partaken of the Powder of Ibn-Ghazi, its soothing tones are always underwritten by a feeling of impending doom. ‘Pale Flare Over Marshes’ starts with a stalking barrage of staccato electronic stabs, an accompaniment to the inexorable approach of a masked Giallo killer before a near metallic riff takes up the lead, the sound building up layer by layer with the addition of percussion, saxophone, and a barrage of otherworldly howls that ebb and flow through the cyclopean fifteen minutes of the track. The album closes with ‘The Hierophant (II)’, starting as it does with random, jazzy drum beats and seemingly improvised sax screams like Charlie Parker warming up. It is only after nearly half the its eight-minute length that some sort of coherence is found, and it develops into an almost mellow lounge number, albeit a lounge in which the damned are awaiting entry to their own personal hells.
Five The Hierophant with ‘Through Aureate Void’ have created a sound that is hard to quantify, and if you haven’t heard it, nearly impossible to describe in words. Imagine if Kenneth Anger had somehow managed to persuade Pink Floyd to write a sound track to his films in the early seventies, or maybe if Black Widow were still going, and had collaborated with Jeremy Gillespie on ‘The Void’, and you’d have an inkling of their menacingly psychedelic sound. What it is however, is utterly intriguing, and thoroughly worth tracking down and exploring. When the world returns to some semblance of normality, the band is promising a tour and festival shows; I for one would be fascinated to see how they recreate this album live.
(8.5/10 Spenny)
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