Continuum — Continuum 2
Two things that got me very excited by this project were; firstly the thought it could be on par with Wilson’s excellent aged and creepy ambient project Bass Communion which released one of the hi-lights of last year in Loss. Secondly it comes in a very nice dvd size case with a set of three post cards which like the cover are adorned with disturbing root or hellish dark animal photos or pictures, yes I’m a real sucker for packaging. Sadly the music found inside doesn’t live up to my expectations, the three long tracks here go from being effective to sadly over stretched and a little clichéd. Prime example of the lack luster side of this album comes in the form of first track constructed IV that starts off darkly inviting enough with looped eerier and hopeless synth & guitar weaving out a subdued melody brings to mind a slow stumble towards eminent doom. At about the four minuet mark heavy,slowed & crawling doom guitar riff kicks in & initially it’s interesting if a little clichéd, but as the track drags on and on for a total a 22 minutes with little or no change or building of atmosphere one patient runs thin, instead of been crushing and atmospheric it’s just boring and rather annoying.
On the plus side the other two tracks are more rewarding through not total successful theres still the feeling of ideas being stretched a little too thin in places. Track two construct V starts with deep droning throb, weird and layered whispered voices that are eerier moved around the audio channels. As more drone textures, guitar elements and ominous bell like tones are gradual added to the sinister sound soup before around the 10 minute mark really kicking in with noisy guitar feed back roar that turns quite darkly harmonic with almost a slowed dark shoe gazing meets black metal tone. Lastly we have Construct VI that starts with cymbal hits,chilling bass wonderings and dark cinematic ambience- rather bringing to mind a more post rock take on one of the main themes for the Morricone/ Carpenter soundtrack to the Thing. Around the four minute mark it drops in doomy post rock patterns & over time the track becomes brighter and more hopeful like ones crawling out of the darkness into a hopeful resting spot in the suns golden rays.
All in all a passable if flawed effort in doomy and atmospheric guitar craft mixed with drone textures & horror sound tracking.