Hailing from the Metal melting pot that is St Petersburg, Gnot is upon us with their fourth release since its inception in 2018. It is a sublime atmospheric melodic arpeggio-induced album, as one expects from that city.
Their previous releases are good, and still they have somewhat matured on this one. It is made with perfection by creative artists. And when you know that Mikhail Kurochkin (of Pwyll and Somn) is at the helm recording, mixing, and mastering, you know that the album is immaculate. It seems like every album he has a hand in is steered toward perfection.
The themes on the album are the stars, the universe, and relationships. Each song soars with breathing melodies, even when it melts into hard blastbeat-induced parts, with poetic lyrics, that can be read on Bandcamp.
The album opens with a dark ambient track named “Pulse” and with a throbbing synth fusing into the next song “Empty” that has melodic arpeggios pushed by bass and relentless drumming on the snare drum, inducing a chilly streak into the track’s veins which seem to burst because of the intense screaming vocals. There is a slight leniency in the music as it widens out, turning the vocals into elongated growls. The music turns heavier as it pans out, carried by low-end bass and higher-pitched guitar sounds. It is dense and effective when it turns into pulsating beats from the synths, the rhythm is hypnotic before it surges back into stormy and atmospheric arpeggios with tremolo sounds, pushed by bass and near blastbeats. The music rises further into a slowly formed crescendo, raging forward.
The next song, “Beast Among the Stars” has a dizzying Dark Ambient opening with clean guitars and heavy versatile drumming upon heaving low end bass before dense chugging riffs pour into cascading melodic arpeggios lifting the Blackgaze sonics via the screaming vocals. The bass follows the melodic theme as it lays the foundation before the whole thing turns to fast-paced blastbeats from the snare drum. There are subtle changes in the arpeggios following an intense melodic path before it pans out with higher-pitched sounds in the extended guitar range. The bass takes over, accompanied by a shimmering sprinkle from the cymbals. Clean guitars are back, heaving and sinking, pulsating, plucking on the clear guitar strings, contrasting the dense parts of the song. It swells back to the tight and melodic atmospheric arpeggios gushing forward before taking a turn, and the music tightens as the screaming vocals are back on top.
“Walls of Glass” opens with another melodic riff leading into a playful part with the guitars and feisty rhythm section, before the guitars swirl, overlapping with a blastbeat rhythm from the drums, and after a while panning out before intensifying again. Then a reprieve in the dense music floats in as it opens a breather with clear instruments and heavy versatile drums before a beat brings us back to the melodic sonics with some variable vocal lines in its midst. A synth is rising in the blasting flow, contrasting the relentless rhythm. The song takes a new turn into an open soundscape towards the end.
A dark ambient intermezzo follows with the track “In Infinity” with slow pulsating dark synths contrasted by light melodic droplets. It is rising towards static chaos at the end of the song and melting into the next song “Your Name” which brings back the fast riff; it has the sense of a high-speed Rock´n´Roll song as it flies away with an engaging melodic theme. It keeps the joyful pace and light melodic theme with the engaging screaming vocals, with a speedy, undulating flow of dense and heavy music. It turns into blast tempo in the mid-section before it shifts into elongated riffs and a slower, heavier part, bringing back the up-beat tempo from the opening with tremolo guitar.
The previous song dips straight into the last song on the album, “Eternity”. The opening chords are light and clean and fuse into a bass-ladden arpeggio part. Strong female vocals rise in the middle of the sounds, overpowering the heavy and dense music. She sings in a dreamy, melodic voice that makes the song very captivating. Her vocals are extremely versatile as she rises to higher pitches before it is contrasted with the screaming, male growls as they sing in harmony. Even with the harsh counterpart, the song has a sense of gracious delicacy because of the textured sonics and melodic theme that rises from the music, not least because of the female vocals. It becomes fast-paced as the vocals soar triumphantly over the dense music. Then it kind of crumbles in on itself, holding back a bit with lengthened riffs, giving a sense of it fighting against the end of the album before the music disappears in sound effects, ending a magnificent album.
