I studied the sleeve picture of this album, trying to work out where the railway station is. Somewhere in the US I guess, not that it matters as the cold, obscure scene with the deserted platform and smattering of lights sets the tone. It’s the third album from The Slumbering, and I fully expected something to match the gloomy cover of this “doom noise project”.

“Be Afraid If God Was Really Watching” is the initial message. “Be Afraid” would do. Distorted and menacing cosmic soundwaves pierce the air. Something is trying to break through the force field. Or is it the sound of insects or even machinery. Such is the obscurity. But it’s mobile. Whether the activity is human is hard to say. Probably not but these machine-like waves and patterns are like a form of communication. The noise develops into a storm with fierce winds and echoing yawns. “Special Doesn’t Mean You’re Special” is now the message. As cosmic winds howl and hiss like a piece of dental apparatus, the deep sounds convey ferocity and suffering. That railway scene is too tranquil. People on railway platforms don’t go around howling. It’s cold out there, whichever part of the universe it is. “Battle Within” takes on a mechanical perspective. Its title made me think that these cosmic forces are in fact a depiction of the struggle inside our brain. If so, we have a thumping headache to support the buzzing drone and the fuzzy firepower pinging around. Stylistically, the ambience is of an industrial kind akin to an Axis of Perdition, Aborym and to a point Blut aus Nord, but this throbbing noise has urgency.

The Slumbering then invade our body with the abrasive “Corporal Travels”. That’s all it is, mind – a solid assault, but not so interesting musically. The pounding of the anvil mixes with the sound of the wind and machinery. The mechanical side of it sounds like a vinyl record with a scratch. “Painful Regression” is short at under 4 minutes but unlike “Corporal Travels” is colourful in its terrifying way. It’s all sinister but “Suffocation of the Inner Love” takes it to a new level. A mechanical sweeping noise acts as backdrop to the kaleidoscope of gloomy electronic output, accompanied by haunting winds and echoes. It ends as if the mechanical production process is complete. But it isn’t, because it starts again with “Fractured Mental Whispers”. The mechanical production-like drone is once again prominent, and with the dark electronica it amounts to a gloomy dirge and little more. The funereal beat and swampy groaning of “You Were Betrayed” take on a more defined dimension, and hammer home the gloomy nature of this psychologically disturbing work.

I never really got where the sleeve art fitted into this. The album’s atmosphere is cold and there is loneliness for sure. But this album goes far beyond a static view. “When We Forget It Repeats” depicts an alien world in a mechanical, industrial and cosmic way. What was most interesting and perhaps terrifying was the fact that the dark ambient sounds are not perhaps of an external hostile world as I first imagined, but maybe of the internal machinations of a human brain processing the tangled processes of the world outside. I don’t know for sure about that but the concept is deep. Stylistically repetition and looping are to be expected on albums of this kind, and accordingly there are hypnotic passages on the one hand whereas others are more thought-provoking by virtue of the layers and nature of the sounds. There’s no lyric sheet or explanation but it’s the processing of the sounds that are interesting. What is clear is that this work takes us through obscurely dark realms. It’s wholly consistent in that respect.

(7.5/10 Andrew Doherty)

https://theslumbering.bandcamp.com

https://www.aestheticdeath.com/releases.php?mode=singleitem&albumid=5800