Aarni / Umbra Nihil

Before you smart AND privileged ones flame me, yelling "BLASPHEMY! LIES!" about the rating, understand that despite my best efforts to understand these bastard children of Korpiklaani, Windham Hell and Candlemass/Red Harvest, Windham Hell and Candlemass, I CANNOT. Whatever I CAN understand is entirely ruined by the extreme difference between these bands. One is a very land-based prog/folk infuenced doom band, and the other is on the opposite side of the spectrum: watery, industrial, dark. There're even MIDI drums for Umbra Nihil. (Kera.zero.kommand AREN'T the only ones with MIDI drums! YAY.) All of it is very hard to understand, and I think most metallers will listen once, then forget about it. This is a sad thing indeed. And now, I'm going to attempt to review TWO SONGS... TWO... by each band. And if any of you have a problem with how I go about it, you can try yourself. I'll just laugh when you fail just as miserably.

Aarni - Myrrys. A strange guitar melody starts this song off. when I say strange, I mean strange. Then it goes distorted, and funeral doomy. Kind of. It could be far slower, but then it wouldn't be Aarni. It cuts out for some sort of synth orchestra, and the freaky guitar. The vocals are VERY out there. Distorted, redistorted, till they could be a part of the darker guitar. A heavy echo effect is applied too. All sorts of strange things. It's repetitive and yet progressive, it's nonsense. The structure repeats, yet changes alot between repetitions while sounding the same. The entire song seems to be based around fucking with you, especially with the solo after the second repetition of the first pattern. It's quite majestic, and finishes the song off. Overall, this song is very well done.

Aarni - Transcend Humanity. Another weird guitar melody for the intro. It fits, yet doesn't. It's much more bass heavy than Myrrys, and gives off a more majestic feel. The vocals are even stranger, dark and with a heavy quaver. The distorted guitar is mixed with the cleaner sounding guitar, along with scattered and strange keys. The second type of vocals seems to be Death/black/trad mixed. Somehow. I don't know. I'm unable to review this song as well as it deserves, it's some sort of traditional+death+black+folk+progressive doom. It ends with a strange, shivery guitar melody, and the second vocal style. I hear MSN Messenger notifications in there too. Somehow. The whole song is completely turning upside down the realm of metal, and music itself. I'm not sure if it's good or not, seeing as I can't properly review or understand it. I like it, but there's bound to be something all other people will hate about it.

Umbra Nihil - Follow and Believe/Fall Without Relief. MIDI sequenced drums, hollow, ambient production. Everything takes a backseat to the watery industrial keys. Except maybe the vocals. For the most part, they're your average doom/death vocals, but good in their own respect. However, there are bizarre whispers and such hidden among the ambient production. It has a progressive feel, much like Aarni. It gets slightly uptempo at about -6:30. The echoey doom/death+whispered vocals are back, as the song goes into a sort of a solo, before declining in tempo, and in volume. There are droning guitars here and there. It's hard to review this band, maybe even more-so than Aarni, because of the strange industrial patterns, and ambient production. I can best compare said production to that of Darkspace. Mellow, with an aggressive edge, dulling the more hateful parts and sharpening the edge of the ambient ones, making for a balanced sound. The main idea behind this epic song-- in my mind --is the creation of an underwater place, a water-covered civilization. Perhaps Atlantis, or something similar. You are merely beginning to realize the true splendour of the civilization, as the song ends. It's like the last song, impossible to understand well enough to review properly.

Umbra Nihil - Water in Lungs. This one brings the MIDI drums out front, along with the watery industrial patterns. You actually imagine yourself drowning. The vocals are given a watery echo. Everything has a laid-back, almost stonerish feel, as you sink... fall away... Then, a heavy guitar riff, similar to the ones in a project known as Metroid Metal, appears. Around it, the ambient water patterns, but less noticeable than before. The whole song has a depressed feel. Almost one of hopeless death. When the guitar drops out, the watery patterns intensify as never before in the song. A droning guitar helps intensify these patterns still more. Soon, it disappears, given a more watery distortion. Then, it goes into an extreme riff, seemingly backed by the doom/death vocals. After that, it calms into the watery sound once more. You see only blue, even once an extreme drone sound seeps into the music. The drums sound very majestic here. The guitar is given a slightly less ambient sound, but still watery. Then it goes into an extreme riff, which disappears to the drum solo at the start, which turns into the Metroid Metal-esque riff. This riff ends the song. Once again, like the last two songs. Impossible to review properly.

What I COULD understand was very good, but the rest I have no idea about. Only Myrrys on this release makes any sense to me, and it only barely. I suggest everyone who likes the undefinable side of metal picks this release up IMMEDIATELY.