Dark Music Review – Endtime Psalms
Review Written By Casey Douglass
Aegri somnia returns with his long awaited second album on Cryo Chamber. The hum of the Endtime Psalms echo through burnt out buildings. Awaiting impending death as the sky grows dark. Black smoke wheezing from charred windows. We were born from stardust, but are but puppets in a mindless game of DNA manipulation, life. Deep analogue drones rumble under the heavy boots of the human machine. Aegri Somnia plays the role of field recorder and audio manipulator with surgical precision.
The analogue drones of
Endtime Psalms really put me in mind of some of the 80s
synth-type soundtracks seen in sci-fi or horror movies of that era.
While not the same, I must admit to half expecting a sun-glasses
wearing leather jacket clad hero chewing a toothpick and squinting
into the twilight of sunset to appear. Those images soon left me once I broke
into the album proper though, the soundscapes created by Aegri Somnia
far darker than any film.
Most of the tracks
feature a selection of field-recordings that sit well with the
drones, from water-based dripping or waves, to more industrial metal
creakings, clankings and scrapings. Some of these effects are toyed
with and twisted into something more sinister, distortions and
strange echoes creating an immersive narrative, even if you don’t
fully know what is happening and can only guess. A good example of
this is the very first track C.A.H.R, a track that begins with the
gentle sound of water, is met by a textured analogue drone and
android scream-like distortions, but ends with what sounds like a
pursuit through crunching snow.
The track Endtime
Psalms also features some wet field-recording, but I must admit that
the wet flapping at the start made my mind think more of a body being
skinned for some reason. Maybe that is just me being twisted though.
A sacral drone and a deeper counterpoint interplay with static as
things thicken. The midpoint of the track features voices, insects
and more wetness, before a lighter melody sees the track to its end.
DNA Cult is another
track that I particularly enjoyed, its gentle start of static and
quiet squeaks soon joined by pleasing tones, but around the midpoint
changes into a grinding insect-leg scratching space, furtive
scurryings accompanied by a quiet bell tolling and chimes. The track
ends with delicate beeps of Morse code, changing slightly into a more
buzzing-beep as it ends. I liked DNA Cult for creating the sensation
of lightness and darkness, and with the title of the track in mind,
the inference of a future-looking immortality project being thwarted
by human frailty and evil intentions.
Something else that
Endtime Psalms does very well is to toy with the listener’s
expectations when it comes to how a track is behaving. A number of
tracks feature the building of layers, maybe a drone, other tones and
field-recordings, but sometimes, just as one element sounds like it
is slowly fading out, it might end even more abruptly than you
thought, leaving a void that the other sounds still playing make seem
even more powerful. This isn’t glaring or disrupting in any way,
just a very clever device for keeping things slightly unpredictable.
Anyone who has read
enough of my dark ambient reviews will probably know that I
appreciate albums that make quite heavy use field-recordings, so I
found myself almost naturally liking Endtime Psalms. The
analogue drones were something that I was struggling to find words to
describe, they certainly feel like they have a warmth or texture that
other drones might lack, and I appreciate their effect on the way the
other sounds are received by the listener. The soundscapes created
are dark and interesting, and the level of talent that has gone in to
making this album certainly shines through. If you like drone-heavy
field-recorded dark ambient, this is an album well worth checking
out.
Visit the Endtime
Psalms page on Bandcamp here for more information, and be sure
to check out DNA Cult below.
I was given a free
copy of this album to review.
Album Title:
Endtime Psalms
Artist: Aegri
Somnia
Label: Cryo
Chamber
Released:
March 7, 2017