From Ottawa, Ontario, come The Ember, The Ash, a one-person project I had not encountered so far. The individual who does everything here, and everything includes recording and mixing, goes by the name of 鬼, which in Japanese means “demon” and in Chinese “ghost”. 鬼, in real life William Melsness (The Metal Archives know everything), is also active in two other bands, Unrequited, also a solo project, and Write Home.
In contrast to the title of their project’s new release, 鬼 appears to be anything but fixated on a genre. While the debut album Consciousness Torn From The Void (2019) was firmly and recognizably situated in the DSBM sector, the release at hand is a different story. Thematically – as evident in cover design, album title and lyrics – mental illness, spiralling thoughts and suicide, are still the primary point of focus. Musically, however, the focus has shifted. Instead of producing another atmospheric/depressive black metal album, The Ember, The Ash have chosen to venture on a less trodden path, combining symphonic black metal and metalcore. If that sounds unusual – it is. Fixation won’t be everybody’s cup of tea, and liking parts of the equation does not equal liking the sum of its parts.
The album’s seven tracks, summing up to 37 minutes of playtime, while complexly constructed and executed with precision, do not combine to form an enjoyable listen. Partly, that’s due to the vocals. Quite prominent in the mix, they provide little variation throughout the album. After repeated listens, their throaty aggressiveness loses its credibility and has a numbing effect instead. If someone screams at you all the time in the same tonality, after a while, you just shut off.
The album’s music, in comparison, is quite varied. Embedded into the mix of black metal and metalcore are a plethora of other elements. Opener Strychnine, for example, short, noisy, and screechy, has industrial overtones in the beginning. Title track Fixation features computer-generated trilling sounds, often heard in chip tune pieces, that provide memorable detail. Programmed sounds and keyboards are employed to add melody, to provide breaks, and to insert additional layers and texture into more traditional composition parts.
My favourite track on Fixation is track number four, The Colossal Void. With a soundscape leaning more towards black metal, it has a greater portion of melody than the album’s other tracks and clean backing vocals, while the drumming is unnerving and relentless like a stroboscopic light, making you feel on edge.
There certainly is no lack of talent, ideas or potential here. Innovation requires the crossing of genre boundaries, the exploration of new paths. The end result in this instance, however, just isn’t my cup of tea. I don’t think that I will return to this again. You might feel entirely different about it.
(6/10 Slavica)
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