Coal to Ash

You could probably argue either way about Alpha Drone releasing compilations such as Coal to Ash (not to be confused - though it certainly will be - with the other compilation Ash to Coal), since the nature of compiling material can either be helpful or unnecessary. All of the singles collected here are hardly difficult to find on the Bandcamp page, though perhaps some people would like to be spared the trouble of looking, so that they can enjoy the intriguing experiments of ‘A Cross of Stars’ and the brief Moon Ballads pair of songs alongside the extended noise workouts that kick off Coal to Ash. Additionally, in this case, 6 of the 11 tracks were not previously available as Alpha Drone material, so there’s definitely another incentive to listen; however, the really quite poor quality of some of the extra material means that purchasers might feel short-changed.

My views on the other singles are available on the pages for their respective releases, so let’s take a quick look at where the other material came from. From the horse’s mouth (Mr Ritter himself), I’ve heard that most of these were demos recorded around 2006-7 when Alpha Drone’s debut album came together, though some were neglected or forgotten for quite a while, such as ‘Holy War (part II)’, which has had the first part irremediably lost. Generally speaking, the recording quality is what holds back most of these scattered demos, though that’s not discounting the lack of substance in ‘Stargazer’, feeling as it does like the most singularly uneventful 7 minutes of AD’s entire discography. ‘Holy War’ in particular seems made as a test for the ears, buzzing about in super lo-fi mode with an underdistorted guitar playing an unsavoury riff, though I recognize that it’s more a symbolic piece of music than a song as such, something that the repeated line late on makes clear. We also get treated to super lo-fi unidentifiable drums black metal (‘Sword & Spirit’) then no-guitars black metal (‘Fire & Ice’), which I can only claim are black metal because I can hear the vocals somewhere miles behind the other instruments and the heavy dose of static.

Just so you know that there is a point in listening to Coal to Ash, the 75 minutes draws to an end with one of my favourite pieces by AD. In this instance benefitting from a mild snowy fuzz in front of the dreamy clean guitar, ‘V8: Saucers Over Antarctica’ feels like a world away from the unease of the other songs, calming me right down with faraway vocals and simple pleasure until it concludes with an unexpectedly pithy quote. Said pithy quote is delivered by Graham Hancock from a documentary, in which the idea encapsulates humanity’s androcentrism and pride, ending Coal to Ash on a sombre and modest note. I wouldn’t advise you to bother with this compilation if you already have some of the singles, since by far the most worthy material occupies the first half of this release, though newcomers to Ritter’s music will get a fair taste of everything the project has to offer - both the best and worst of Alpha Drone.