Aphotic — Under Veil of Dark

Here is a self-released MCD by Aphotic a metal band from the well known metal capital of Green Bay. The only way to describe this band is with the vague "Dark-Metal" label. The band describes itself as "Ambient Death" but I fail to see the "death" part and although they have doom-metal tendencies, I wouldn't call them that. The songs may seem simple at first but they possess a certain level of horizontal sophistication and their primary aim is, I believe, to evoke certain feelings in the listener instead of a "wow these guys really sat on their beds practicing their instruments for a long time!". I hear a Katatonia influence, mostly in the song "Atmosphere", and if the band used more clean vocals -- they do at times, but they remind me of those on Opeth's Orchid (they still lack confidence and are mixed a little low) -- the resemblance would be even more apparent. This is not to say that the band doesn't have its own sound, because they do, but recognizable elements from other bands make it to the surface at times.

The songwriting shows maturity and the band vary its approach a little oneach song. The music flows and you don't get that "cut & paste" impressionthat so many bands give; you don't feel like they just took a pile of randomriffs and put them one after the other to later call it a song.

The center stage is occupied by the vocals and guitars but synthesizers areused to spice up the sound and give that 'symphonic' quality to the music.It works well and the cheese factor is kept to zero even when the bandthrows in a little strange noise or sound effect. The production varies fromdecent to slightly amateurish, but it would be unfair to judge aself-released effort too harshly on that point -- hell, the band themselveshave said that their next big step is getting a drummer, better equipmentand a better sound -- so in this case it's just a minor flaw, very minor infact since I don't think the production takes anything away from theenjoyment. A pleasant surprise is that the drum machine sounds good (I'veheard some live drummers that sounded more triggered than that...).

If Aphotic keeps releasing quality material like this, I would be very surprised to see them without a label for long. Anybody from a label reading this should take the hint...

Here is the way to contact the band and get a copy of "Under the Veil of Dark" (MCD) for a very reasonable price (they are practically giving them away!):

APHOTIC c/o Keith Powers
PO BOX 8236
GREEN BAY, WI
54308-8236
USA
Email: aphotic@new.rr.com