To the End of Time

This album is the huge surprise for me this year. Huge. Fucking. Surprise. Why? Because I haven’t heard anything like this, nothing remotely close, in my life. Drowning the Light is a fucking slap in the face to pure black metal, because it stretches the imagination as to what black metal really is, but at the same time, it is so fucking black, depressing, and powerful that pure black metal is too overwhelmed to slap back. This review could end up being long, because I have a lot to say about this group which has really fucked with the genre as I thought I knew it.

Maybe it shouldn’t come as a surprise that this black metal is from Australia. My first guess would have landed it right here in the US, but the underachieving land down under produced this gem.

To give you a very rough foundation to work with, I’ll lie to you and give you two images to play with:
1. This music sounds like what Amesoeurs would make if you killed its family, raped its children, locked it up and tortured it for 25 years, cut off its eyes and ears and tore out its tongue, then asked it to write an album.
2. This music sounds like Xasthur writing the soundtrack to an epic romance film.

Those two images are lies because it isn’t a true representation of the sound, but it’s an attempt to give you an idea. The production seems more distant than it should be possible to create, like the music just doesn’t want to come out of the speakers. It sounds ancient as well, like the tapes were allowed to collect dust and rot for many years before being put to disc. Every instrument is recorded poorly, distorted, harsh, fucked up, you name it – it doesn’t sound right. We’ve all heard sampling used in black metal, usually some lame dialogue from a priest or some ritual, trying to sound evil or whatever. Well, Drowning the Light uses some of the most brilliant samples I have ever heard, and uses them often – beyond that I can’t tell you without writing a book, but be informed that it is fucking awesome.

When writing about melodic black metal, there is always the awareness that melodic doesn’t truly mean “melodic” in the traditional sense. It’s more like the idea that, if the music wasn’t so black, it would be melodic. Drowning the Light takes this idea, absolutely fucking shatters it, picks up the shattered pieces with bear hands, and completely rebuilds a disfigured remnant of the original. I have never heard a band so melodic yet so utterly fucking depressing.

Many of the songs have passages based partially off some kind of old hymn or other random song of unknown origin, and this is demonstrated by the echoey samples which play back a warped version of the original under the mess of other noise. They seem to choose samples that sound like they should be happy, with major progressions and nice sounding chords. It’s almost like a grand defilement ceremony, as each song literally tears the soul out of the melodic phrase being used, and twists it into the abyss. The horrific raspy screams of the vocalist are so out of place yet at the same time seem to be more integral than the music itself.

The level of irony this music achieves is almost unparalleled with its effect on mood. While a minor progression with a dark melody can be very depressing, a major progression with a bright melody that is turned into something dark, is infinitely more depressing. Rather than presenting sadness and anger, Drowning the Light presents hope and then stomps all the fuck over it. The only way to describe the music is metaphorically because beyond saying that it is really poorly recorded guitars, drum machine, and screams, there is no way to illustrate the genius.

I could individually point out moments in songs that are fucking mind-blowing, but that would take forever. There is just one moment, in one song, that I want to talk about, because goddamn I just love it. In the song “The Will To Survive” (which is a good example of the unbridled irony), well the whole song is spectacular, but at about the 5 minute mark something special happens. The guitars cut out, and a strange instrument starts playing, like a keyboard making a bell tone I guess, playing a kind of a bittersweet melody, and there is this screaming over it, which I believe is sampled, and I don’t know whether to call it screaming or crying, but jesus fucking christ it makes me shiver it is so devastatingly depressing. No more to say about that – listen for yourself, if that part doesn’t have some effect on you then you might as well stop reading my reviews right now.

This review was originally intended to ecompass both “To The End of Time” and “Through The Noose of Existence”, but due to the technicalities of this website I am picking one. Somehow, Drowning the Light has released something like 5 separate recordings this year alone, including 2 full lenghts and a couple promos. I don’t know the details except that the 2 LPs are absolutely packed, end to end, with brilliant material. There isn’t a weak song on them, that is the truth. The songwriting is absolutely fucking stunning, each song finds a new way to tug on the heart-strings (or snip them off).

I’m expecting some incredible things from Drowning the Light, and make no mistake that I plan on hunting down every last of their recordings after hearing this brilliance.