Æ.Thy.Rift

Review originally posted on the Deaf Sparrow Facebook page on 19 July 2016. Written by Stanley Stepanic.

Boy I needed a dose of this. It's been too sunny out. I like when it rains, I really do, I'm not being pretentious. I like when the trees look dead and their children, the leaves, wither and crumble below my feet. It makes me feel superior. I'm happy to say you can feel that way too, with a dose of down-tempo black metal from Australia's Ill Omen, who's too kvvl for Facebook.

Nuclear War Now! Productions, though it has the most awkward name of any label I know, is consistent with releasing the best of the dark. Ill Omen was pretty straightforward from its inception in 2009, and then with 2011's "Divinity Through Uncreation" things began to change, for the better. Away with all that Satanist, gauntlets-on-thy-arms nonsense. I want more, I want the feels.

"Æ.Thy.Rift" has received some criticism from metal circles, and it's understandable why, because it's highly inaccessible if you're expecting the usual frost-bitten flash chording of black metal and vampire blast beats (cool reference). This is a funeral dirge, and it's something that, perhaps, requires a certain context in which to listen to it. In the car to work, don't even try. While hiking, no, not even in winter. At the gym, bad idea, tried it. You need to be in an awful mood to listen to this. Post-human hatred must envelop you. It's like a suicide who, after slicing open the vein properly, goes from "oh my god I'm going to die" to "eh, whatever." This is that particular state. The music's consuming, it overwhelms, the singing like a corpse releasing noxious gases of decomposition that somehow fluctuate its vocal chords. Read: very, very forlorn. It gets the essence of black metal, but so much that it allows its own form to fall to pieces in the process. I was a big fan of this one, but it's easy to see why some hated it. There's no coming out of this superior, you're just a total waste afterwards. It's difficult to find any variety, either, because of how much it drags and relies on atmosphere. But, if you're looking for something to ruin any mood, even the breaking point of sexual climax, this will do it.