Transitions

It seemed unlikely that Arche would turn up on Transcending Obscurity Records for their debut full-length, since not only had a pretty lengthy 7 years elapsed since the EP Undercurrents, but in any case the Indian label tends to sign more aggressive extreme metal bands. That puts the gradual approach of these Finns rather at odds with the rapid development of their hosts over the last 10 years, yet it’s also testament to the quality of Transitions that they were spotted and picked up. It’s an album that reveals its features gradually, not always playing by the rules of funeral doom but at the same time sticking to its major benchmarks, and thus I find myself many listens deep before knowing what to say about it.

The first trick that Arche play so well - as if drawing us into a den of smoke where everything is illusion and fancy - is to suggest that the music found here remains sparse and simple throughout the 36 minute experience. The second trick, and perhaps the method behind the first one, clearly pertains to the surprising brevity of the album, since Transitions only includes 3 songs, a pair of them representing quarter hour efforts, while the shorter title track feels like a bridge between them. In both cases, smoothness marks Arche out, in the way that the songs move between different passages, moods, and techniques, and also the way the album flows as a whole. Never do I feel a sense of haste or uncertainty behind any of the decision-making, and that’s immediately apparent from the opening to ‘Reverential Silence’, which selects a complex drum motif before engaging the guitar and then persists in using it throughout the atmospheric build up until the vocals have powered through a verse and quiet falls about 5 minutes later.

During the heavier songs, moments of calm crop up a few times, but never mindlessly so, that initial acoustic break in ‘Reverential Silence’ just occupying a few bars before the consuming embrace of the band’s full scale returns at the exact same pace. This in contrast to other acts, who may use acoustics as a surprise break during monotonous slow grinds; Arche seem more interested in dynamics than any adjustments in heaviness, since the broader bombast increases volume and sonic range while actually losing clarity compared to the dewy crispness of the almost pastoral acoustics. As a result, ‘Transition’ possesses a certain intimacy and immediacy that neither ‘Reverential Silence’ nor ‘In a Solace Light’ does, as those cuts unfold their form over very lengthy and subtly changing movements, and thus can only be fully seen from a distance. Curiously, the lyrical construction mirrors the form, the opener and closer delivering pithy yet opaque poetry while ‘Transition’ contains recorded speech of a much less abstract nature. It’s additionally worth noting that the first lyric on Transitions reads “An unwinding grey light,” and the final line gives the title to ‘In a Solace Light’.

These choices in the overall make up of the album, as well as the extremely concentrated style that Arche play in, turn Transitions into a remarkably focused listen, one with absolutely zero wasted time or unnecessary wandering. It may not have the gripping nature of more abrupt music, though I hardly think that was the purpose of the Finnish duo, who instead choose to wrap the listener carefully in alternately foreboding and becalming strains, carrying us on a journey. It doesn’t strike me as obvious whether the title refers to personal states of transition or whether the music itself ought to go through the same process of change, but I’m prepared to bet that both could be found here by anyone willing to let themselves go and drift like smoke on the wind.


Originally written for Ethere #1, a funeral doom magazine available through www.facebook.com/etheremagazine