Sathimasal

Turkey isn’t exactly what can be described as a country with a huge extreme metal scene, I’ve come across a few in my time both good and bad, but very few as promising as this fairly recent obscure act by the name of Yayla. Consisting of a sole member called Emir who handles all the instruments, Sathimasal utilizes an approach that dredges the depraved depths of black metal, twisting and manipulating it into something altogether perverted before spewing out what can only be described as a vile cacophony of ritualistic black metal which is nothing short of unnerving or exhausting.

The first and last tracks are both instrumentals, but the music is such that they fall in line perfectly with the other three tracks as when you do hear Emir’s sparse vocals, it’s evident they’re nothing more than an additional instrument in the conjuration of Yayla’s nightmarish and disintegrating atmosphere alongside the enduring reverb soaked drone of the guitars and repetitive drum programming.

“Fordreame Wonderlore” begins the hellish descent with its apocalyptic surge of heavily distorted guitar and relentless drumming which has to be said remains pretty one-dimensional for its whole seven minutes. While this repetition is effective in getting the basic message across, it is abused a bit too much throughout Sathimasal. Still though, when this album is good, it is exceptionally so. None more evident than “Emperor; Elegy to Wars Never Fought” which is somewhat comparable to a journey through a vast and eerie underground city inhabited only by the stench of the dead. The ending passage of ambience has a slight similarity in its arrangement to “Tomhet” and ties up the song in wickedly hypnotic fashion.

The next two songs are much the same in their arrangements; the very definition of lo-fi, much in the way Mutiilation and Paysage d’Hiver are. When describing the guitar I would use the term ‘riffing’ very loosely for a lot of the time there are no discernible riffs at all, the guitar is distorted to the point where it’s just an impenetrable suspended drone drifting in and out. The vocals range from a low pitched nigh-inaudible groan to a more typical throaty rasp and as stated play a bit-part role as they’re so buried in the mix. “Harvester...” retains the quality of the previous song, the same bottomless and infernal atmosphere though suffers like the next by being overlong and ends up fizzing out over halfway through.

When it’s good, it’s fucking brilliant, but the truth is much of the album could easily have been condensed by cutting all the songs in half as it just tends to lose focus after a while. With a bit more refinement then Emir could definitely be on to something. Nevertheless Sathimasal still contains some quality material and if you’re in the mood for some arcane black metal that’s focused heavily on the pitch black ambient side of things ala old Leviathan or even Urfaust then definitely give it a go.

Bleak and dessicated, dripping with sorrow, Sathimasal will smother you. Even experienced spelunkers of cavernous, coffin-dwelling chasms will be overwhelmed with the thick layer of decaying flesh and minds dripping all over this noise. It's oppressive, at times too oppressive and prone to falling into ruts from which it takes forever for songs to escape. This one man project from Turkey has churned out a collection of tunes so massive and over-stuffed, they can barely be absorbed in a single listen. But there in lies the charm of Sathimasal: it's not perfect, but it's an intense, full body listen that demands attention.

Sathimasal takes influence from where ever it can find it: elements of Beherit, Emperor, Burzum, the various Mories projects, Lunar Aurora, Incantation. Look at that list... it's easy to see how Sathimasal could really be that damn oppressive and atmospheric. Only when one begins listening to the album, they come to a realization. It's all oppressive atmosphere. Sathimasal is one massively large piece of ambient skull hammering. There is very little in terms of dynamic progressions or even slightly adventurous musicianship: riffs, bass lines and drums are repeated at a machine-like pace for long, barren stretches of minimalism drenched in a swampy compound of brilliant, cavernous production and massive, overwhelming keyboards. All the individual tracks pretty much follow these same basic patterns: repetition, shift, repetition, shift, etc. For some seriously long tracks: the shortest track "Fordreame Wonderlore," an all instrumental track, comes in at a puny 7:38. This album was quite literally designed to inundate you.

Yet despite this, Sathimasal works most of the time. In the right frame of mind, in the right atmosphere, it can be utterly transfixing. Its almost has a Drone-like quality to it, which makes it feel like a unique experience. And it's the production that makes it all possible. The guitars and drums have a distant quality to them, while the bass rumbles the very Earth right underneath the surface. The keyboards overwhelm the other instruments in just the right fashion to create a swirling, vortex like effect. The only thing I can compare it to is S.V.E.S.T.'s Urfaust, though the production here is much stronger. This is easily my favorite production job of 2012 so far.

Sathimasal is a charming album, one that appeals to my personal taste quite nicely. But it's not perfect, particularly in the song-writing department: the repetition starts to become a crutch at several points, and feels artificially extended from time to time for the sake of testing listener endurance. As charming as being blasted by the same riff can be for a time, there is a breaking point and Sathimasal continuously push it on every track. The final, vocal and keyboard section of "Emperor; Elegy To Wars Never Fought" is incredibly beautiful for the first few minutes, and by the end you are ready to strangle the female vocalist and break the keyboard player's hands. Sathimasal is in desperate need of some self-editing, and I can't help but wonder if we would have had a classic on our hands had Emir Togrul, the man behind Yayla, had shown some self restraint.

Which he did not... at fucking all. Sathimasal is a tyrant who wants complete control, and it's going to get it at any cost. I find this both appealing and yet slightly boring, and I admit that Sathimasal has been perhaps the hardest album for me to gauge so far this year. I've been listening to it with almost religious zeal, yet never really become as enamored with it like I want to. I can say this: Sathimasal is an album that I think just about everyone should try to experience, to see just how much abuse you can take. A powerful atmospheric experience perhaps, but not always a powerful listening experience.

Rating: 7.5/10

originally posted at http://curseofthegreatwhiteelephant.blogspot.com/

Turkey… I don’t know much (maybe nothing) about this country, but Yayla has come to me as a revelation; still the fact that only one person is able to do something so good is strange to me, but what else could you say when a project like this comes and touches you in the inner parts of your soul… remembering that darkness is still out there, but only depends on you to find the good of it?.

This kind of bands, the ones whom use the ambient and maybe noise in their songs have always been hard for me to describe, but I’ll give a try, hope this doesn’t turn to be some stupid words from a mindless son of a… ok, the first thing I noticed is the use of good and long instrumental parts in each track, something that is hard to hear, but after a few hearings this becomes more listenable and starts to make a way in your memory.

The guitars here are very amazing, keeping that tone of classic black metal, raw but at the same time “frost” and very cold, but sometimes with a sweet and polite, if you could say that, touch in them making more creative the experience of listening to this type of music; these guitars go hand-in-hand with the bass lines, making them notice in the fast and slow parts, the keys put the atmospheric touch of bitterness and desolation, keeping each track in the good way of causing ambient becomes true when you put play. The production of this release is clearly good for this kind of music, keeping all the instruments as notorious as they should be, and not falling in the mistake of using too much the noise or the “black metal cliché” sound, fitting perfectly each track with the next and so.

The only thing that doesn’t fits for me in this album: the drum programming, this kind of drumming is been since a long time especially in the black metal bands, making sometimes the music repetitive and common, at this case the very good use of the rest of the instruments make this sound pass, but still is something that doesn’t adequate too much for me.

“Sathimasal” has a very good sound, sometimes catching and friendly; in others relentless and implacable for the fans of classic black metal, always making a challenge for the listener in use of long instrumental parts. Things to improve here and there, but nothing that really erase the good things this production has.

Just for the record: Yayla is a band you should put an eye on, after hearing this, I know deep inside Emir has many more at his sleeve.

Balancing ambient and black metal aesthetics against one another efficiently is not as easy as it might sound, but it's this very coupling which saves Yayla's sophomore Sathimasal from becoming what might otherwise prove a relatively average blast off into the bowels of this super saturated genre. On the surface, this is a one man act from Turkey, with Emir Togrul performing all instruments and ominous vocals. He's created a clamor of sodden death and decay here which fully soaks the listener into its cavernous and oft chaotic disposition. Deeper and darker albums than this one are seldom experienced, but those not in the mood for dipping their heads into its churning, volatile ichor would be best avoiding it, because despite the tranquil transitions speckling its onslaught, this is neither subtle nor accessible by any stretch of the imagination.

As if to prime the audience directly for the ensuing punishment, Sathimasal opens with a 7+ minute rush of blasted instrumentality called "Fordreame Wonderlore". This is a long way to go without a structural change, yet it maintains its tempo with confidence while the synthesizers play off against the writhing, incendiary burst of early 90s Mayhem-like tremolo chords. Thankfully, the other four tracks, which are all considerably longer in duration, feature a wider dynamic. "Emperor; Elegy to Wars Never Fought" intersperses its own blasting with a delightful ambient/synth break seeped in angelic, shimmering choirs; or churns into a slower, molten groove above which Emir's vocals feel like disembodied spirits haunting a subterranean cathedral. "Conjurer; Prophetillars Will Hollow" has higher pitched riffing, tolling bell tones and a brighter rasp that seems to tear at its structure like a hell hound pawing and tearing at blood-tinted curtains. But my favorite track here was the nigh on 140minute closer, "Will to Walk Paths to No Temple" which almost felt like an underground alternative to Summoning, not only for the title but for how it moaning its obscurity over the broken beat, a current of dense and deadly sadness.

Sathimasal does often run into problems with its sense of overwhelming repetition, especially in the faster drum sequences, but this is hardly a unique issue to Yayla. A bit more variation would not hurt this music, in fact it would seem welcome in its expansive, hostile atmosphere. That said, I had an even greater issue with the production. It seems far too level, and as a result the vocals, which are distant to begin with, often find themselves too lost under the weight of the riffs and the savagery of the blasting, or the denseness of the keys. Perhaps if they were panned more, or if the voice itself was more eclectic in its percussive meter, it would become more prominent. Beyond these issues, Sathimasal delivers what it promises, a bleak and unnervingly drowning trip into the muted red arches of horror implied by its cover image. Try and envision a blacker, hyper interpretation of the ominous, resonant death of bands like Embrace of Thorns, Vasaeleth, or Mitochondrion only with a cavernous aesthetic and submerged keyboard eloquence not unlike the Australian project The Crevices Below; nearly always on the attack.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com