A World Long Dead

Uuuuh…. Aaaaah…. Noooo… Forgive me this crude start of the review. I have not converted to the sect of dadaists. The fragments at the beginning just symbolize the pain I felt while listening to “A World Long Dead”. My dominating thought was “too bad that I am not dead yet too”. Anyway, let’s dive into the album in the hope of drowning in it.

“Tears of a Dead God” is a piano intro with a length of more than three minutes – too long in my humble opinion, but more or less okay. Yet it goes without saying that it does not represent the approach of Azgorh, the multi-instrumentalist who runs this project. The rude awakening comes with the first regular track. Please understand that I do not see any sense in writing its goofy title here. Whereby I must say that the title is one of the smaller deficiencies of the song. It – and the entire album as well – has apparently been recorded under water. The non-organic, foggy sound lacks power and, even more catastrophic, any form of atmosphere. The production is simply bad. Excuse me, I wanted to say: “it breathes the misanthropic spirit of the true underground”. Haha, this is probably what the artist would say, but from my point of view it sucks completely. Music-wise, the song is also a total disappointment. Without any expressive guitar lines, without a strong chorus and without … (fill in whatever you like, you cannot go wrong), noone is able to win the game. Almost everything is missing here, although Azgorh was surely full of good intentions.

I am surprised that Satanic Warmaster are by far at the top of the similar artists list. What? This is an insult of the Finns. Maybe Azgorh had some slow- or mid-paced Burzum classics or songs of Judas Iscariot in his mind as he began the “creative” process. But if Burzum is the luxury limousine, then Drowning the Light is a go-cart. In other words, the inspiration is hardly recognisable due to a lack of quality. The five pretty primitively designed tracks pass by without giving me any moment of joy. They lack any component which would be able to draw the audience into them. “Mysteriis Anguis” increases the level of intensity and offers ten percent more power than the other songs, but this alone does not generate enthusiastic storms. The same goes for the hoarse run-of-the-mill vocals which lack individuality. Finally, the short intermezzo “Nostalgic Grief” is absolutely superfluous.

Black metal has so many fascinating facets. It can be furious, ice-cold, meditative, spiritual, ferocious, atmospheric, depressive, hypnotic and so much more. “A World Long Dead” is none of this. In its “best” moments, it doesn’t spoil the listener’s mood. Its best element is the stylish booklet, and the best detail of the booklet is the statement on the last page: “This will be the final press of this album on CD.” Thanks a lot.

I have heard about 40% of this recording having downloaded it from the internet early last year. This album existed on platter for about a year before its release. The web content detracts from the value of this, in my opinion. The whole work needs to be heard from start to finish to achieve its effect although it serves as good promotion.

The beginning will be a great surprise for those expecting lo-fi primitivism suggested by earlier Baal Gadrial and DTL works. It is an electric piano piece which devastates through sadness and intricacy of its feeling even if a little lacking in technical refinement. The other dodgy aspect of this album are the horribly off-key choral vocals on track 2 as well as the unnecessarily long and repetitive closing track. But the negatives stop there.

The first act of viciousness here are the possessed vocals and the crap, dusty guitar sound – soft, almost velvet and muddled through layers of foggy dis-production. The vocals have a cutting, emotive quality about them that best come through when perceived though the headphones. Azgorh achieves a repulsive atmosphere through that vocal approach alone with his linear, depressive musicianship contributing strokes of downcast, tearful colour, dripping like wet ink and very well represented in the brownish black and white cover-art. There is some very guarded use of dissonant, ringing keyboards on this which works quite nicely.

Track 5 “Mysteriis Anguis” is the most interesting piece for me, be that because it was not made public until the album’s release or because of the intriguing atmospheric guitars and dynamic structuring of the riff therein. I think the album climaxes here, with a long, depressing descent to follow in the form of the 10-minute long title track.

Originally published in Procession of Black Doom zine #1

What we have here is some mostly fast and at times almost chaotic underground black metal in the vein of “Vampires of Black Imperial Blood” era Mütiilation and “Doctrine” era Sombre Chemin. Yes folks, on this release Drowning the Light has cast off it’s depressive black metal cape almost entirely. The production is very much in the early Mütiilation and Sombre Chemin vein, raw and a bit messy. The vocals are very extreme sounding vampyric screams and yes, they sound a lot like those of the two French bands I just mentioned.

However, there’s more than just raw black metal here. A classically inspired piano instrumental called “Tears of a Dead God” starts the album. This piece is surprisingly well composed and quite beautiful as well. With an opener like this, I expected a bunch of depressive black metal songs to follow but this was not to be. “Haunted Ruins of a Vampyric Soul” (a very Mütiilation influenced title in itself) attacks the listener with some aggressive and melancholic yet hateful hateful black metal. This track pretty much sets the tone for the rest of the album. Towards the end of the track there appear some “ghost choirs”, which add an eerie vibe to the song. “Nostalgic Grief” is a short clean guitar instrumental. Nothing special and perhaps even a bit insignificant is how I’d describe it, but at least it doesn’t ruin anything.

After the little breather in the form of “Nostalgic Grief”, it’s time to face the two most violent tracks on the album: “Fate Forged in the Name of Satan” and “Mysteriis Anguis”. “Fate Forged in the Name of Satan” is totally aggressive and contains keyboards that hum in the background. This is how demo era Mütiilation would have sounded if they had used keyboards! All in all, this must me the best Mütiilation song by a band that isn’t Mütiilation. The vocals on this track are some of the most extreme I’ve heard in black metal, it sounds like Azgorh has lost his mind. “Mysteriis Anguis” is another fast track, bordering on the chaotic but thankfully never descending into pure chaos. Also this track contains some humming keyboards and incredibly extreme vocals: tortured shrieks and howls that one cannot but enjoy.

The album closes with the title track and this is the only track which can described as depressive black metal. It’s slow all the way through and the riffs are of the typical depressive black metal kind. While I do enjoy this track, it’s also a bit dull, as the drum machine plays the same beat though out the whole song without as much as a single fill or other kind of variation. “A World Long Dead” should satisfy all those who crave hateful underground black metal. It’s well crafted despite the abrasive and dissonant first impression it may make.

'A World Long Dead' is considered Drowning The Light's second full-length record. There seems to be some confusion over how many full-lengths Azgorh has made and that confusion has spread to me. 'A World Long Dead' reminds me, to an extent, of the first Pestilential Shadows record. It's a record I truly do love, but 'A World Long Dead' doesn't quite match it. In actual fact, when I first head it, I was very disappointed. Fans of black metal everywhere were ranting and raving about Drowning The Light. Apparently they were the new kings of depressive black metal, and they certainly ruled the roost when it came to the Australian scene. Well, i'm not convinced.

As I said, 'A World Long Dead' reminds me of Pestilential Shadows earliest material. The way in which it's recorded, in particular. The production is typically old school. It's a lo-fi sound that portrays an amateur approach from Drowning The Light. I get the feeling that the use of such poor sound quality was intentional. Old school black metal is something many bands seem to wish to keep going, well into this century. For me, it should be left in the 20th century, where it was born, raised and died. I was never a fan of the old school style. Instead, I much prefer the way in which the genre has involved. A clearer sound pushing to the surface. Much more innovation. A lot has changed since the days of those basement productions. However, Drowning The Light seem to be fixated on the idea of using a buzzing, chainsaw effect on the production. You could envisage 'A World Long Dead' being recorded in the woods, whilst trees are being taken down by a chainsaw and being thrown into a wood shredder.

The production is seeming like it is to give that cold feeling that tends to run through 'A World Long Dead'. To me, it just allows the vocals to completely take over every and harm the instrumental parts. The vocals aren't standard, that's for sure. They're high pitched, yes. They're very distorted, yes. But they're not standard. They do tend to overshadow the music, which is where this full-length begins to go downhill. 'A World Long Dead' is a record that relies heavily on atmospheric tendencies. It attempts to merge those mid-paced riffs with the repetitive percussion to create a distant atmosphere, which hangs over the music. This is achieved well, but the vocals detract from it. The vocals are poor. 'A World Long Dead' actually has a very poor opening, but grows in strength as the full-length goes on. The first two or three songs are uneventful. You could be forgiven for forgetting they're even there. There is a distinct lack of substance and this is when the poor vocals truly take your eye off the musical content.

For a band who are pushing for a place in the worlds top depressive black metal list, this will simply not do. Drowning The Light need a better sounding production, improved vocals and more involvement from the bass to really take off. 'A World Long Dead' is undoubtedly going to be viewed as a positive amongst loads of black metal fans, but not me.