Weather Eye

Weather Eye is the debut release of Kestrel, a collaboration between C.W. and Kinvig of the CW Productions horde. Even when compared to the rough aesthetics and minimalist approach of the label's standard raw BM fare, this tape stands distinctly apart with its degree of austerity. The cover art is a flat illustration of something evoking a rural countryside in an emotionally dulling monochrome. Instead of a recording studio, the tape was apparently recorded at a local creek. The whole release seems fully devoted to nature and detached from modern society; regardless of my feelings on the release as a whole, I must give it credit for looking and sounding a lot more authentically "natural" than a lot of new atmospheric black metal meant to evoke vast forests with stupid neofolk sections or whatever...

The structure of the release is absolutely bizarre; a beautiful fluttering synth intro, the 10-minute title track which takes up 60% of the release length, then an interlude and outro similar in style to the intro, between which are sandwiched a second black metal song scarcely longer than the synthy bookend tracks. The intro and outro synth material might actually be my favorite thing about the release; evocative of modern classical, it is quite consonant and vibrant, ebbing and flowing with harmonies that wouldn't be out of place in a string quartet. The interlude is a bit more standard black metal intro material, a droning and brooding slow piece of piercing, tone-deaf synth warbling.

If you've heard any other CW Productions material, the black metal material will be familiar in predictable ways while also throwing some peculiarities at you. The melodic style is consistent, with majestic, breezy chords wisping around through the music. That's about the only thing that can be assumed from the get-go, though. The recording style is odd, with a single guitar (no bass) stripped of all treble and piled in the center of the mix so that it sounds like it's trapped in a wind tunnel. The drums are nearly inaudible, mostly limited to the low frequencies of the thumping kick and snare as the drumming alternates between a grand swooping rock beat, the classic Furdidurke D-beat, and all-out steady blasts. The material shuffles between a limited assortment of riffs, changing their tempos and backing rhythms as the song evolves. The buried vocals are shamelessly crude: mediocre, weak rasps trade off with pseudo-operatic, arguably goofy melodic yells, which give the music an even more intimate mood. "Weather Eye" is the more interesting of the two BM songs, with its long-form (if not especially ambitious) songwriting and howling, almost DSBM-like riffs; "Wind Hover" is less interesting, sounding something like a Furdidurke B-side in that it's less melodically solid and based around a punk beat. Not to mention its unsatisfyingly short length (two minutes), which is exacerbated by the abrupt fade-out ending. Are we only hearing an excerpt of this song? It's the only explanation I can think of as to why a two-minute song deserved a 100-second interlude. I think two long-form songs would have made the format more satisfying to listen to, albeit less inspiring of curiosity.

Weather Eye is a decent release which I come back to from time to time mostly for the inimitability of its atmosphere, which is solipsistic and raw in a way very little other black metal is. Between the incomplete array of instruments, the guitar being so raw and neutered that it sounds more like a distorted old synth, and the operatic yelling, the end result resembles a general idea of the 1800s more than something distinctly "black metal". Kestrel addresses a niche that no other band could tap, a niche that nobody in their right mind would have realized even existed. Worth listening to as a curiosity piece, at the very least.