Wanderers: Astrology of the Nine

This kind of release- huge in scope, huge in length, everything happening all the time, massive cover art, high concept- it was either absolutely gonna rule or it was going to be the shittest thing ever, a "this is why punk was invented" 70s prog excess in bloat kind of thing. Luckily (as you've no doubt cleverly surmised by seeing the score I gave it) this thing is the former, a symbolism stuffed exercise in sheer maximalism that rules completely hard, it is the best new(ish) album that I've heard in yonks, taking me back to young Caspian days of hearing Nadja and The Angelic Process and being absolutely blown away that someone could do those sort of things with, effectively, the same instruments that were on Hey Jude.

The way I would describe the songs here is that simply put, Spectral Lore's stuff is more interesting while Mare Cognitum's stuff is better. MC are fairly happy to stick to their usual formula of visceral, triumphant, massive atmo-black with a big helping of that floaty Isis-ish post metal in the way the songs ebb and flow. Spectral's tracks, meanwhile, rarely quite access the same transcendent heights but there's always a bit of the unusual about it, in those fluid, graceful lines in Earth, or the much dirgier take on Saturn, or how the bass never seems entirely settled. You could perhaps argue that SL's tracks build up tension which is then released by MC's more intense outburst. The way it flows is by and large is a complete triumph; way better than any other split i've heard.

I know it's not the most exciting thing ever to read a review where the writer just goes "everything about this rules" but it's very much true! I love the deep mysticism of the concept, halfway between deeply intuitive and somewhat abstract; it's hard not to wax very very wanky about it. Pretty much every song is a banger- Earth's warmness, Venus's regal despair, the ferocity of Mars and the absolute TRIUMPH that is the final Pluto tune. The length is likely to turn a few fair off but it's never bothered me- my favourite album growing up was Justice For All, after all- I've always been of the belief that if an album, or a movie, for that matter- rules super hard then I don't care if it's four hours long.

Anyway, there are a lot of very wordy reviews on this album already so I hope this one has been relatively brief. I'm looking forward to spending an extremely large amount of money on a vinyl reissue at some point. Needless to say, buy or die