Blood Box — The Iron Dream

Blood Box’s second release conjures up truly breathtaking imagery and atmosphere. Blood Box is the solo project of Michael JV Hensley, one half of the well respected dark ambient band Yen Pox.

But The Iron Dream is not simply another dark ambient release. Hensley infuses the project with a keen eye for audio experimentation and structures that are still full of surprises.

Most of the tracks feel like journeys through grey desert or dead seas. Coming across beautiful decaying structures that emboss the landscape with mournful grandeur. This is how the melody appears: slow you make out the features. A few of my favourites are: Cold Hand in Mine is filled with an enchanting melancholy light, it brings to mind a Victorian scene. A child’s funeral at the side of a great lake, the casket been pushed out on a small boat to drift towards the sea. A touching and truly sad beautiful air pervades the track. Fall In with its slow turning atmosphere, which slowly reveals a melody heady with morbid eastern promise. It brings to mind a decaying band of Arabs making their way across an endless desert on skeletal camels under a black sky set with a punishing blood red sun.

I could go on talking about every track because, each is its own stand-alone mind movie. But that would spoil the pictures your own mind will paint with this heady audio canvas. So to sum up if you have even a passing interest in drone, dark ambient, soundtrack or atmospheric music, pick this up, without a doubt one of the highlights of this year.