Tracklist:
- The Summoner’s Procession
- Advent of a Sinister Omen
- Crepuscular Necromantic Visions
- Perpetual Covenant
- At the Gates of the Marduk’s Shrine
- Brotherhood of the Serpent
- Orion’s Progeny
- Submission
Bands with death and gothic slants may
have stolen the headlines in metal this year, but the past months have born
witness to the continued relevance of black metal. With 2012 already seeing the coarse, rusted
gratings of traditional black metal recreated and revamped by groups as diverse
as Denial of God and Anno Diaboli, it seems fitting that the year should be ended
with a hat-tip to the slightly-different debut of Argentinian deviants, Mortuorial
Eclipse. Mid-way between an EP and a
full-length album, The Aethers’ Call looks, instead, towards a tightly-strung
symphonic heresy, resplendent in weighty, string-laden drapery, and demonic,
misty utterings.
Mortuorial Eclipse have put tremendous
effort into producing an unnervingly foggy and yet commanding atmosphere
throughout. And they work it like a
fitting doberman chained to a treadmill.
Prominent roles are dished out to an orchestra driven by strings and brass,
scratched, tarnished, and yet uncompromisingly powerful and authentic. A smoky, hoarse metal ensemble grinds against
these symphonic foundations with the energy and anger to shake dust from the
rafters of the underworld itself. Despite
a conscious disregard for neatly-polished finishes, the sheer depth of noise is
immense.
None of this is earth-shatteringly
original. In fact, Mortuorial Eclipse have
leant on the received wisdom of this century’s Norwegian black metal heresy so
much that there are moments when The Aethers’ Call is almost indistinguishable
from Dimmu Borgir’s 2003 trailblazer, Death Cult Armageddon. None of this detracts from an excellent final
product, however: in the best spirit of the style, the music is guided and
driven by the orchestra, from hushed, sinister strokes of strings to the throbbing,
guttural crunches of brass, and virtually everything else in between. In places, its weight reduces the din of driving
powerchords and blastbeats to peals of distant thunder.
If the howling orchestration and grainy finish
to musical themes summon images of archaism, they’re only strengthened by the
album’s lyrical content. Invoking the dark
spirits of ancient Babylon through its assorted gods and demons, The Aethers’
Call summons a primeval horror with disturbing conviction, in spite of some
rusty turns of English phrases. Imagery
laden with re-appropriated biblical references (“orphaned land”, “the will of
their messiah”, and “the ancient serpent”, to give but a few) is malevolently
shaded with goblets of blood and reoccurring black candles, casting long
shadows over an already sinister landscape.
What is achieved in atmosphere, however,
(and it is an awful lot) is not always matched in substance. On paper, lyrics often lie stranded between
the verses of incantations which speak much but say little: whether flooded “with
virgin blood” (The Advent of a Sinister Omen) or left to wander “over the
blackened flames of the barren eternity” (Orion’s Progeny), without any
sturdier lyrical basis to root the story in, it becomes difficult to make out anything
more than the perpetual worship of false gods.
When, at the mid-way point of the album, we arrive At the Gates of the
Marduk’s Temple, the air is so overwhelmingly dense with gods and idols –
Marduk, Bel, Akitu, Anu, Esagila, and Nebuchadnezzar – as to make mere mortals’
heads spin.
The clarity of wordsmanship is hardly
aided by vocals which, no matter how dark and rumbling, are so foggy that they
become almost inaudible, even when consulting a lyric sheet. In fact, this is a small speck on a largely masterful
canvas. For, beyond a stirring
atmosphere, The Aethers’ Call does offer a lot: energetic and ferocious beats are
combined with skilfully crafted changes in tone, mood, and rhythm. Some of the strongest elements of the album,
indeed, come in those moments when the music shifts up and down gears,
splitting its artfully limited spectrum into shards of colour. In track 2, Advent of a Sinister Omen, a snarling
guitar solo slashes swathes from the steady, striding rhythm which precedes it,
energising the music and heralding a monstrous swirl of strings and ascending
brass. Yet more impressive is the effect
in track 6, Brotherhood of the Serpent, as the incessant, pounding tension is relaxed
to reveal baleful chanting – the only place in the album where vocals threaten
to break out into clean singing – and exotic, twisting runs on guitar.
Even so, for all the drama, Mortuorial Eclipse
are nonetheless afflicted by some musical pitfalls with hinder their sounds. At certain points, it feels like the band haven’t
quite gotten to grips with their material: whereas, at their magnificent best
in songs such as Advent of a Sinister Omen, riffs, beats, and motifs strike
with guile and initiative, there are overbearing instances where the music
flounders amidst a foggy indecision. In particular, track 6, Brotherhood of the
Serpent, its magisterial chanting and arabesque guitar picking aside, fails to
find any steady rhythm or driving musical theme to build itself around, leaving
a stubborn yet unfulfilled husk. No less
frustrating is the sense that, for all the effort which has gone into welding
tracks together, the album falls short of a single, unified piece of work: as The
Aethers’ Call draws to a close, a mysterious outro does less to conclude than
confound, wafting through further symphonic haze rather than bringing the music
to a purposeful end.
Ultimately, however, whatever objections
may be raised against The Aethers’ Call, this is an album of enormous and
undeniable positives. Glorious in their
orchestral splendour, they evoke some of the blackest atmospheres available in
the genre. Mortuorial Eclipse look the
part, sound the part, and, on the basis of what we’ve heard so far, will be
playing the part for many years to come.
Production: 5/5
Lyrics: 3/5
Album Cohesion: 3/5
Music: 7/10
Percentage Score: 72/100
soooo.... are you still in hibernation?
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