The Prophetic Silence

Formed in Glasgow in 2019, Gråt Strigoi is a BM duo whose music has progressed from raw BM to blackened doom and sludge over the musicians' past three albums. New full-length release "The Prophetic Silence", GS's fourth, has a dissonant hardcore edge and is actually quite fast so fans of the duo's older music may be in for a surprise. As far as I can tell, there has been no change in GS's line-up: multi-instrumentalist Josh Brown plays all instruments including bowed bass guitar, Hammond organ and piano on a couple of tracks, and brings in some elements from noise music; and vocalist Kieran Gilroy contributes lyrics, some percussion work and field recordings. A fair amount of experimentation with noise, musique concrete and ambient can be expected then, along with a fierce and harsh BM assault that itself combines elements and influences from across the extreme metal spectrum of BM, post-BM, doom and sludge, and fusions between these genres.

The music starts with a full blast of dark discordant raw BM, slightly reminiscent of Deathspell Omega in sound and mood, leavened with spine-chilling cold reptilian screaming vocals, in "Remembrance", the title of which refers to the album's central theme of recalling and remembering those people, ideals and situations that are now lost and which exist only as fading memories, yet are still valuable as guiding lights and badges of identity and affirmation to others. "The Sacrifice" continues in similar musical fashion: for the most part it's fast and taut, harsh and abrasive in tone, relentless and aggressive, yet at the same time icy and remote (and all the more frightening as a result) in its vocals and mood. The song's details are fascinating to observe, if you can pull yourself away long enough from being absorbed in the sonic maelstrom: near-industrial noise effects, grind, clear background dark ambient drone and other layers of sound and atmosphere add nuance and depth as the song winds down to an almost soothing, yet still tense calm.

The next couple of songs that follow (tracks 3 to 4) are not very different from the first two in style and approach, though they are slightly less aggressive and at times melancholy and restrained. "Perennial Self" (track 5) is an unexpected shift into a slow, sorrowful moody urban post-BM soundscape in its first half before it erupts into a shower of acidic guitar noise, screams and doomy bass riffs. Final track "For the Blood Made Ruins" is an epic blackened doom / sludge / ambient / noise sprawl lasting nearly 22 minutes, and experimental in its structure, with an emphasis on drone and atmospheric effects in much of its running time. Quiet moody acoustic guitar passages, heavy with sadness, longing and regret, sit nearly side by side with powerful doomy sandblasting guitar riffs and percussion crash, and all the while Gilroy's screeching vocals, by now incorporated into the music as an extra layer of harsh texture, range across the music like a never-ending demonic storm.

For the first few times, the album can seem unrelenting to the point of monotony, but with each spin, more of its introspection, sorrow and grief makes an impression on you, and each one deeper than the last. My major gripe with the album is its production which, while it emphasises the music's harshness and intense emotion, also flattens it and makes it seem one-dimensional. Some of the subtlety and depth the album should have, or probably did have at some point in its recording and mixing, are lost. Probably the album could have gone from a raw style of production to a cleaner style and back, from one song to the next, but then it might have ended up sounding less like a unified work of related songs and more like a disjointed series of separate pieces. Apart from this technical detail, the songs are otherwise well written and performed, with each track featuring moments where the music rises and falls, and likewise the tension and mood rise and fall, never allowing listeners to feel comfortable but always anticipating something ominous and terrible about to happen. Early tracks like "Remembrance" and "The Sacrifice" are the most fiery and aggressive, with later middle tracks like "I, the Beholder" and "Perennial Silence" being more complex in mood, and the last epic track the most atmospheric and perhaps the most stark and confrontational in its droning sections.

At just over 56 minutes in length, "The Prophetic Silence" can be an exhausting sonic experience, and if you hear it all the way through without pause, you'll find yourself a very different person from what you were before. At the very least, you'll swear you've seen, heard and experienced something that's like a flash of lightning, a flash of revelation perhaps, before it all suddenly escapes you, and you find you have to play the album again (and again!) to find that revelation again.