If you are looking for an easy-listening record to sing along to in the car while driving to the beach, I suggest you look elsewhere. There is nothing easy about this album. It's dark, lugubrious, and in some moments it seems like it wants to scare the listener away. But for those who manage to stand their ground and go through it, you might find the experience strangely enriching.
You are welcomed by a long opening track, where funereal bells, distant caws of crows and obsessive drones force you to enter the desolate landscape, creating tension and expectation, the same that you feel when you are watching a good horror movie, if you're into the genre. The guitars, glitchy, downtuned, take the lead in the second track, reinforcing the droning approach of the intro, menacious like a giant insect. The next track follows similar coordinates, with the distortion reaching chainsaw levels, disorienting the listener but keeping them nailed to their chair, uncapable of running away. We then move into more atmospheric territories, with echoing plucks coming at us from every side. I have never been in a forest, during a snowstorm and being surrounded by wolves, but I'm sure it must feel similar to this. After a short track that reprises some of the sounds that we had already encountered, we arrive to the last (and longest) piece. Here the annihilation reaches its peak, with the harsh noises grinding on your eardrums, each note piercing the listener like a sharp sonic javelin. And then, the bells make their return, and bit by bit the track dies.
According to the bandcamp notes that accompany this release, the album was born as a way for the mastermind of this project (who curated all the songwriting, recording, mixing and even the artwork) to process the passing away of their father. It is therefore impossible to evaluate the music without considering its emotional layers. The sense of loss and dismay permeate the tracks from start to finish, and it seems like we are walking side by side with the artist in their procession through their turbulent emotions, without being able to reach out to them. We can only hope that this record helped them to at least partially soothe their pain, and thank them for having shared their journey with us.