Gazing Light Eternity

Italy‘s Chiral are a band that dropped onto my radar a number of years ago and with the release of ‘Night Sky‘ they made me and many others sit up and take notice, even earning the attention of Pest Productions for a second press and deservedly so. Earlier this year the ‘Snow/Heritage‘ EP was released, containing an excellent Women is the Earth cover and some wonderful acoustic pieces, mastermind Teo proved ‘Night Sky‘ was no one trick pony.

‘Gazing Light Eternity‘ is the band’s latest release and this time comprises of four tracks or parts for that matter. The album is built around two long atmospheric tracks ‘The Gazer’ and ‘The Crown’, each followed by the two ambient instrumentals ‘The Haze‘ and ‘The Hourglass’. Upon first listen I found this to be a darker sounding album than the previous mentioned ‘Night Sky’. The two longer metal tracks on offer are atmospheric black metal and very memorable at that. The simple melodies and tremolo riff work stay with the listener long after the album has finished and in some places reminded me of early Burzum, while maintaining that same lasting effect Varg was so good at.

The album opens with ‘The Gazer’ which has a trance like melody running throughout and some excellent keyboard work in the background not forgetting the obscure and haunting sounding melody that appears around the 9 minute mark. ‘The Crown’ is the second of these metallic tracks and is a much slower piece and full of melancholy. Once it begins you will be greeted with a mournful keyboard melody which would not be out of place on a Lustre album. As the track progresses you will also be graced with some orthodox like chanted vocals in the background which combined with the keys make for quite an atmosphere, again trance indulging. I have listened to the album numerous times now and every time I always seem to find something new that I missed previously which is never a bad thing in my opinion.

The two ambient tracks are also beautifully crafted with ‘The Haze’ containing some spoken parts (maybe taken from a movie?) as well as tranquil acoustic work, very calming and relaxing in nature while closer ‘The Hourglass‘, again keyboard driven, has some nice field recordings such as rainfall and the sound of a gentle stream, the calm after the storm one could say.

Chiral have once again created a wonderful release, the album has a spectral like atmosphere going on probably down to some of the haunting melodies Teo has crafted, but not in a depressive or bleak nature, more obscure if that makes sense. With its hypnotic and trance like grasp the album seems to pass by much quicker than its 40 plus minute playtime and flows perfectly. This just might topple ‘Night Sky’ as my favourite Chiral release but at the same time it is quite a different beast altogether. Decisions, decisions…

Originally written for a the Somber Lane blogspot

Having adopted their new-found style, one-man Italian atmospheric/post-black metallers Chiral have settled into quite a groove with their switchover to this style after their initial formation as a black/doom project as this allows the band to incorporate more folk influences into the raw black metal. A concept album about the evolution and perception of the perpetual flow of time on men, places and memories, the second full-length album was originally self-released October 27, 2016.

As is to be expected with bands that employ this particular style, the main inference here is on the bands’ atmospheric black metal standings, which are placed at the forefront of the music in grand fashion. Centered upon swirling, highly-melodic tremolo patterns at a constant, repetitive style that sweeps along through the music in here which results in numerous passages of extended rhythms circling around the same central pattern from these arrangements interspersed with instances of fine keyboards and blistering, straightforward drumming that packs a great deal of rumbling double-bass motifs into the music. This ends up replicating the wholesale naturalistic vibe presented throughout that’s commonly associated with this particular subgenre of atmospheric black metal, and with the light ambient interludes placed along the way that bring about plenty of even more melodic intersections with this one managing to gain quite an invaluable degree of slow-burning simplistic rhythms that draw upon their exchanges of atmospheric works to give this quite an impressive outing from the start. At only four tracks, though, there’s bound to be a feeling of incompleteness to the effort as this one really seems to go for a series of the extended swirling rhythms for long periods of time with only a few chances to add to that due to the short running time. It’s really only the main thing wrong with this one otherwise.

Being just a touch too short for it’s own good, that’s the only real flaw for this album as the main factors for it being quite enjoyable and entertaining are much more prominent here which really propels this one quite nicely for fans of droning atmospheric black metal or fans of his past works.