Re-Release for the finest release, Cape Town’s blackgaze or Atmospheric Black Metal scene has been offering for years.
First off, there is some confusion about the release date of this record: It was originally released by the band on November 15th of last year – with a once off pressing on Isolation Records (still available through the band’s Bandcamp account) on vinyl and also a CD edition – but has since been picked up by Season of Mist and “re-released” on January 20th; when you look at the minute distance between the original release and the “re-release” you might have an impression how good this record is. So, let’s dive into this.
Four songs, 36 minutes of blasting beasts of blastbeats, acoustic guitar ballerinas hovering over spherical ambient heavens, guest voices of angelic qualities, guitars riffs to shame so many profiled edge-lords. A lot about this release may remind people of the most prolific pioneers of the genre, Wolves in the Throne Room, Panopticon, Nachtmystium – bands that all gave a lot of spins to the classics of the 70s (Floyd being the most obvious one) but not focusing mainly on the prog-rock aspects of those but rather on the way to use singular parts to move from one part of the song to the next. Have a good and close listen to the opener “All Nights belong to you” and the way is transforms into the second track “In Acclamation” with all of its Floydian glory, there is so much of Rick Wright in it that one might wonder if the fellows from South Africa used some kind of voodoo ritual to bring him back to life. If they did, then, well … breathtaking idea. However, Wright is not the only thing that brings certain reminiscences to the audience. If you hear some of the second phase – Opeth in this one, it wouldn’t surprise me, because I do too, as well as Agalloch and their folksy guitars.
Nevertheless, this is NOT a tribute record. This is unique in its own sense, not yet another combination of the usual and by now well-established blackgaze concept but a next step in the evolution of the genre. This is atmospheric black metal of the best kind. Just pure musicality wrapped around good lyrics, brilliant transfers from one part to the next, never dull, very well-produced with just the right amount of dirt necessary to show the roots of the genre. This may sound like a fanboy writing this – and hell, yeah I AM. So are Season of Mist who picked up the quartet’s debut just two months after it gave so much joy to the world. Listen to The Language of Limbs and tell me you are not!?
