Ash to Coal

Slightly more appealing than the “greatest and poorest hits” of Coal to Ash, the later of Alpha Drone’s recent compilations Ash to Coal serves as a reasonable collection of remixes, demos, and unreleased tracks. Since many of the original recordings from AD either suffered or benefitted from hugely unclear instrumental tones and weird methods of applying distortion, offering a bunch of remixes together gives another chance to experience stuff like ‘A Cross of Stars’ and ‘Stargazer’, even if it doesn’t always make a huge difference to the enjoyment. On the other hand, the demos and unearthed material are interesting for the widely disparate styles they exhibit.

Unfortunately, the opening of Ash to Coal rendered the recent EP Hard Rock completely obsolete, which is a black mark against it, though you can read my comments on that matter in the appropriate place. Nevertheless, ‘A Cross of Stars’ shows the trend of the remixes here to dispel some of the fuzz and discomforting feeling of claustrophobia from several original songs, although ‘Stargazer’ additionally receives more clout and clang, as well as a greater presence of ritualistic moans. The redone songs from the self-titled debut haven’t been altered a great deal, but may well persuade fans of AD’s more ambient and noise-oriented recent work to look back into the project’s black metal past.

Definitely of interest are the long workouts that close Ash to Coal, ‘Shambala Serrano’ and ‘The Consequence’. Most of the ideas for these instrumental tracks come from electronic and ambient music, and that is evident in the spacey ambience of ‘Shambala Serrano’, which obviously sounds quite different to its later incarnation on AD’s debut album, here using only the original synth line. The more varied ‘The Consequence’ moves from sinister sounds into dungeon synth, ending slightly incongruously with a few electronic bleeps. Additionally, ‘Dawn’ seems like something different from the rest, representing a sonic journey that epitomizes war with its samples and sinister tone.

Obviously, any time this kind of release comes up, some interest in the previous work of the band is mandatory to gain full appreciation. However, in this case, I feel that Ash to Coal may actually work better than its sister release at showing how large the scope of Alpha Drone’s work can be, going all the way back to the roots of the project. Really quite interesting.