Dark Ambient Review – Tower Of Silence
Review by Casey Douglass
Anything that mentions
a tower usually leads me to thinking about the Tower of Babel, the
mythical construction that tried to reach heaven, but which God
stymied by causing language-based confusions amongst its builders. As
you can imagine, I’m a riot when Jenga is broken out! While the
builders might not have been united by language, their drive to reach
heaven, avoid hell and to delay death is something many will identify
with. I had these thoughts in mind when I began listening to Xerxes
The Dark’s Tower Of Silence, and they were thoughts that
would fuel an interesting expedition into something both dark and
mesmerizing.
Album
Description: Xerxes The Dark invites you to this excarnation, a
high quality dark ambient journey, inspired by historic, contemporary
and future events. Tower Of Silence is a mixture of drones, ritual
ambient, dark and cold atmospheres with a touch of haunted field
recordings. Recommended for the fans of psychological thriller,
horror and mystery literature.
As a whole, Tower Of Silence presents the listener with
shuffling distortions, ominous clangs and discordant tones that meld
together into something both atmospheric and claustrophobic at the
same time. A track that demonstrates this perfectly is The Omen (A
Schizomanic Trip), a track that is also my favourite on the album. A
juddering rhythm opens things, fleshy drippings and gluggings quick
on its heels. Distorted electronic shrills buzz and whine in the air.
Then came my favourite element, the sound of what could be a
breathless shuffling creature, and this in turn, is soon married to a
kind of police-siren shrilling. There are background whispers, and
later what could be a roar. With the title of the track already
channelling thoughts of the film with the same name, this track
seemed to signify the coming of the dark one, or a dark one at
least, and its miasma of busy rustlings and rattlings was a joy to
listen to.
The next track, Dagon (MMXX), is also another favourite of mine, and
it contrasts with The Omen (A Schizomanic Trip), in a number of ways.
It opens with the sound of crashing water and the roar of a
leviathan, setting this soundscape in the most watery of settings.
The deep vibrating sound, when combined with a kind of metallic
shimmer, makes this a quieter track in some ways, but one equally as
engrossing. Later can be heard what might be a bell-like tolling,
mixed with the signal sweeps of a radio scanner. It had me thinking
of the classic Harryhausen films in which some god or other would
rise from the sea to terrorise the mortals quaking on the shore. A
fun, wet track to be sure.
The final track I wanted to talk about in-depth is Man &
Deviance, because it created such a strong image for me. It opens
with a scuttling/scraping sound, and a kind of pulsing that hints at
pressure building in the aether. A fast-whispering begins, a
resonance hanging in the air behind it. There are heavy footsteps and
insidious clickings and rattlings. The latter part of the track seems
to present vocalisations that could be someone calling for help or
crying out in despair. The image this track created for me was of an
angel being kept in captivity, probably in some twisted tower where
the shadows seep and the shackles are rimmed with rusty nails. A darkly
menacing track, infused with corruption.
Tower Of Silence is a wary shuffle along dark corridors, a
shuffle in which the listener is feeling their way by sound, and
fingertips against stone, wondering why the air is so hot and their
brow is so moist. The tracks it contains all seem to usher something
dark into the mind, and offer it a lullaby to entice it to stay. A
great dark ambient album for anyone’s collection.
Click here to visit Tower Of Silence’s Bandcamp page, and
check out the album preview mix below:
I was given a review
copy of this album.
Album Title:
Tower Of Silence
Album Artist:
Xerxes The Dark
Released: 25 Jan
2019
