Nihil Impvlse — Stasis

The first track, and the shortest, is ‘Krankheitsfelder,’ which combines eerie dark ambience with reverberating junk noise, which moves in, out, and around the stereo field; later, the distant thump of drums appears. This plan is largely followed for ‘Psychik Plague’ which features higher pitched looping tones and some German speech samples, there’s also more distant drumming, which builds into saturation, but the track is saved by some effective creeping grainy shrill noise textures that sound bit-crushed - not always my favourite thing - but here they’re very nicely crafted.

 

‘Thanatological Singularity’ is up next, and so are more drones and junk noise punctuations, here complimented by some murky speech samples and machine rhythms. The fourth track, ‘Zeitgeist Penthotal’ is another retread, with buried speech that is sometimes barely discernible, plus the addition of vaguely martial drums, whilst ‘A Prison Within A Prison’ opens with a bellowing speech sample and a windy drone, before rattling rhythms and resonating metallic percussion enter, further strengthened by trumpet like tones and some flanged vocals. ‘Prophets Of Fall’ is the penultimate piece, combining more stuttering electronic patterns with reverberating clangs, distant voices and an insistent looping electronic lurch. The final track, ‘To All Our Futures These Ruins Shall Return,’ probably has the best moments on the album. It starts with more horn-like tones, which are accompanied by small percussive sounds and a hollow electronic throbbing, creating a good sense of space; very buried vocal sounds appear, alongside more electronic and percussive layers - all quite discreet. Later the track changes up a gear, becoming very clean and somewhat unoppressive Power Electronics built around a seasick synth throb, before finally ending with slowed choral voices.

 

I feel like a lot of Stasis - beyond being rather interchangeable (and maybe that’s the point, reflecting the title) - sits in a tension between being sparse and minimal, and being more complex and layered, and often it’s not a satisfactory result, to my ears, anyway. There are passages where Stasis opens out a little, and these are effective, and there are also moments where it tries to coalesce into something more strongly Death Industrial or PE but is perhaps a tad clean and underwhelming. In general, perhaps, the album constantly threatens to fall into place but fails to, but those interested in a Death Industrial tinged dark ambience will find something here.