The mysterious duo known as Aethyr have crawled out of the abyss once again to offer up yet another slab of black and doom encrusted madness. Housed in a sturdy, black cardboard folder with silver metallic lettering, Messio contains seven compositions that find them continuing to push the envelope of experimental music. What you get here is a plethora of droning, distorted guitars that are absolutely punishing, coupled with an equally as distorted, chest rumbling bass assault overtop the ice cold, plodding, industrial style percussion. Adding the voice of famed occultist Aleister Crowley, who's speeches are sampled from ancient vinyl recordings, seems like a logical move considering this disc feels like one, long black funeral. In fact these seven tracks can been viewed as pretty much a natural extension of their eighteen minute contribution "Mass" which appeared on the Russian label RAIG's split release Quadrivium in 2009. However this isn't entirely a one dimensional sounding effort typical of the strictly drone infused direction of those early Sunn O))) albums, because a track like "ave_S" proves that Aethyr are more than capable of shaking things up from time to time. The piercing, icy stabs of the layered, high frequency guitars that kick things off feels like a drill hitting a nerve ending, before the song gradually unfolds into a swell of massive, power chords, droning keys and some sparse, electronic percussion. As the song slowly began to take shape, the overall vibe suddenly make me wonder what "No Quarter" would have sounded like had Zeppelin decided to drop acid before hitting the record button. Which isn't to say they didn't, but you get the picture.
Messio is not going to be one for the masses (sorry about that), however if your taste tends to lean towards the more experimental side of doom and black metal then this should deliver the goods and then some. More importantly though, I think the "The Great Beast" would definitely be proud of this collaboration.
Track Listing
1) a.c.s. I
2) occultus I
3) mass II
4) occultus II
5) ave_S
6) occultus III
7) a.c.s. II
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