Chiliad Rite

Horizon of the Mute is a band I got treated to through Secret Satan (Thanks PaganiusI!) that plays a nicely done mix of doom metal, drone and psychedelia.

Much of the music here reminds me a bit of Esoteric of all bands, especially with the experimental and psychedelic wanderings found within this album. The well done guitar solos also bring Esoteric to mind. Funeral doom paced and crushingly heavy riffs with some amazing death metal vocals on top. The riffs, while funeral doom paced, don't otherwise resemble that from many funeral doom bands – they are more akin to Khanate without the squealing feedback in between every note. It is also not the kind of drone/doom that Sunn O))) produces, these songs are "short" and digestible. Actually this entire album is short and digestible – for a doom metal album 40 minutes is an EP.

Industrial ambience is also used to great effect here, really driving the sometimes martial atmosphere of this album. The chanting and industrial elements create something I haven't really heard much of before. There aren't really any drums throughout this album, and I'm not even sure there are drums at all in the first place! Even at the start of Ars Magna, what sounds like drums may just be industrial noise used to good rhythmic effect behind the acoustic doom passage with fascinating spoken word on top. The guitars pound so forcefully that they create a rhythmic percussion on their own, with the industrial elements marching to the beat of the drone. Wait, is that a violin I hear? That is what I love about a doom metal this layered and intricate. There are a lot of pieces to pick out that I didn't notice on the first listen. The violin in Obliterating the Extinguished almost sounds oriental. Ars Magna features more traditional drones and a well done echo effect on the vocals once the heaviness kicks in. These mammoth riffs were so heavy they cured my constipation (although that might have also been the excess cheese on the pizza).

What a fascinating project. Rhythmic drone/doom absent drums with industrial and noise elements isn't something I would check out on face value, but this fucking crushes!