(Fresh off an NCS co-sponsored UK tour with his band Bloodguard, NCS writer Andy Synn returns to these pages with his review of a remarkable EP by Bristol’s Rosicrucian.)
It’s always a pleasure to encounter music where form is so perfectly suited to function. In this case, Rosicrucian’s flowing, tide-driven take on post-black metal dynamics is described and elucidated perfectly by the artwork and the song titles, which fit effortlessly into the musical aesthetic as a whole, enhancing the experience of the listener. The fit is seamless and seemingly effortless, the art adding whole dimensions to the music as an experience.
The slow-building tension of “Beneath The Waves” is the sound of a storm gathering on the horizon, whose furious winds and explosive cloud-bursts of emotion sweep down upon the listener with elemental force. Torrents of blasting, storm-driven drumming meld with instances of gleaming ambience, an azure haze which paints the song with a deep shade of existential despair.
The ringing coda of “Lest We Forget” is a thing of crystalline clarity and beauty, its skeletal spectre reduced to its starkest bones by the weight of ages, its remains exhumed by the passage of time to reveal both the beauty and brutality of our finite existence. Exposed to the merciless elements, we are stripped bare by the scathing winds of tumultuous, blackened fury which carry these notes of striking melody with vibrant, unflinching power. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »
