(written by Islander)
In early 2020 we hosted the premiere of a thought-provoking debut EP by the Berlin-based band Pyre of Descent. Later that same year they released another EP (Love’s Sombre Death), and now they have a debut album named Albedo that’s headed for release by two labels and the band this coming September.
The new album is described by one of those labels as “a mature form of occult/dark rock with some post-punk and gothic sensibilities, somewhere at the intersection of Fields of the Nephilim, The Devil’s Blood, and Aluk Todolo.” Based on that description alone, you can guess that it’s a fork in the road leading away from many of our usual beaten paths here, though not entirely divergent (as you will see).
One song from the album has been revealed already, and today we premiere a second one, “Love’s Sombre Death (Canto II)“.
photo by @elvira.akzigitova
In its name there’s an obvious connection between this song and the long title track from that 2020 EP mentioned above. But what you’re about to hear isn’t the same as the version released on the summer solstice six years ago. As the band explain, it has been “refined, distilled, and re-recorded”. They describe it further:
“Love’s Sombre Death (Canto II)” is a surrealist dirge on love’s demise; it deals with reaching closure and release when one surrenders their control to the forces without. It was inspired by personal experiences at the infamous Neudegg Alm in 2018.
Here are the lyrics:
twilight sweeps its opaque hand
high azure set aflame
structures sink below the ground
the shackled soul now unbound
what is hidden in this void?
a spirit in dissolution
weaving above cloud
it all comes falling down
As the band have described, the music is surreal — and unsettling. In its opening phase a bass generates a throbbing pulse, and around it the music both abrades and rings, both scratches and swirls. The effect is almost hypnotic, yet its atmosphere of tension is too great for it to create a complete trance.
It gets closer to a state of entrancement when the drums arrive to rhythmically pop as the bass deeply muses, and when the ringing guitars vibrantly flicker. Yet the mood seems to be one of distress and yearning, a mood enhanced by the pleading tones of a second guitar.
When the gothic vocals arrive in gripping fashion, the singing is deep and haunted, perhaps the most dirge-like aspect of the song. A piercing guitar solo soulfully wails, and becomes an anthemic experience, an anthem of sorrow, but also perhaps of freedom, that seems to reach back for inspiration (as we hear it) into the psychedelia of ’60s and early ’70s.
The music shifts, sending out tormented fanfares in line with slugging beats, and then begins to ring, shiver, and swirl again around a jumping, head-hooking groove. One of the layered guitars flares into another stunning “arena-ready” solo, and there’s nothing dirgelike about it.
At the end, the notes urgently shiver against a misty backdrop, another sign of “a shackled soul unbound”.
There might be too much life in the song, both distressing and vibrant life, for it to become entrancing in the sense of a dreamlike spell, but it’s nonetheless a viscerally captivating experience, and a very memorable one in its aftermath. (And man, those guitar solos are tremendous!)
Up above we mentioned a first song made available for listening. Its title is “Die For Us“. It deploys dual guitars to create a musical seduction, a kind of mysterious, beckoning embrace with an edge of danger. Like the song we’ve premiered today, it’s not as harsh as most of the music we feature here. The drums rock instead of race, and the guitars vibrantly ring and woozily swirl instead of slashing and sawing, but the vocals are deep and dramatic (and diabolical too), partly growled and partly sung in quavering tones.
The song is a muscle-moving, hook-laden creature, but the band also change it near the mid-point, slowing the pace, giving the bass a place of prominence, and showering listeners with bright chime-like tones, like metallic petals falling in some very strange grove. The changing interplay of the stringed instruments continues to create powerful seductions, though some of them are quite dark. You may have trouble finding your way out of this grove.
The lyrics themselves contemplate a fall, and a farewell. Here are the closing lines:
a farewell
we leave for you
bound divine
for we must trace
a door in
to fall from you
bound divine
the trail between us all
we fall from you bound divine
like faces in the light
that fall
and fall
and fall
Albedo will be jointly released by Rubeus Obex (double-LP in the U.S. – 200 copies), Swiss Dark Nights (digipack CD), and the band (double-LP in Europe) on September 23rd, the autumnal equinox.
Pre-orders for Albedo on vinyl can be made now via the Pyre of Descent Bandcamp, or, if you are located in the Americas, via Rubeus Obex, at the locations linked below. Pre-orders for the album on CD are open from the Swiss Dark Nights Bandcamp, and will be available from the band’s at a later date.
https://rubeusobex.bandcamp.com/album/albedo
https://swissdarknights.bandcamp.com/album/albedo
https://pyreofdescent.bandcamp.com/album/albedo
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https://www.facebook.com/RubeusObex/
https://www.facebook.com/SwissDarkNights/
