Profaning the Ground

Greek ambient BM act A Diadem Of Dead Stars released two EPs in 2015, "Profaning the Ground" and "The Mist Bearer Pt II". I've already reviewed "The Mist Bearer ..." here and didn't think it was up to the standard of the band's earlier album "The Mist Bearer". So it was with mixed hopes that I approached "Profaning ..." - will it be at least good, if not better? Let's see ...

The recording divides into four tracks, each with their own titles, but it's best heard as one whole work. The mood in one track carries over into the next so it's hard to pull yourself away from that track just to view it as a separate piece in itself. True, there are definite breaks between tracks and they do have beginnings and endings but if ADODS had rethought the concept a little differently, those tags could have been lopped off and the music allowed to spill over from each track and continue into the next track without disrupting the mood. The EP leads off with "Wall of Ashes and Dirt" but the music here is much more solid and impressive than what the title suggests. In fact it looms over you solemnly and majestically, almost the moment you start playing the recording: all of a sudden you're in the dark and a huge imposing wall of deep doom guitar is thrown across the horizons, and a funereal dirge atmosphere is flung right over and through the space between your ears. Well, how's that for total immersion?

The title piece does tend to be repetitive and it grows quite slowly but this gradual development is necessary for the emotion and mood to encompass listeners completely and instil feelings of dread, foreboding or sorrow. Again the emphasis is on cultivating a vast inner soundscape of immense solitude and sorrow. I'd have liked the track to be at least twice as long as it is and maybe a bit longer, if only to be able to savour it more before the music moves on. Five minutes?! - the track can sustain longer than that. Likewise the track that comes after is repetitive and seems to move slowly - I say "seems" because if you pay very close attention, there is actually a lot of activity going on beneath the guitar - and again it's not a long piece.

I like the entire recording and I really think it could have worked much better if the tracks had all been joined up to form a continuous piece. If they had been done this way, they would have formed a natural arc from beginning through crescendo and plateau into descent and end. Some sort of climax or resolution would need to be worked into the third or fourth track and the whole EP would be more than just good or even above average. On their own, the tracks are little more than exercises in creating and sustaining mood and images with sound. If the tracks are supposed to be independent of one another, they need extra time to develop further and to generate their own little musical narratives within the larger narrative.