Of Earth and Sun — Uncoiled
Opening slowly and from the distance, "Antahkarana" moves toward the listener in growing depth and hypnotics. Shimmering and oscillating, this carpet of tones serves as the base for interesting and nearly obscured instrumentation. Add to this the affected, primitive howl, and Uncoiled starts off on the right foot. Using heavily affected instruments and vocals to create hive like droning, "Consuming of the Illusionary Body" continues along the path of drawn out, hypnotic electronics. With these first two tracks in place, one understands the direction in which Of Earth and Sun is taking the listener. Building off of this platform, the addition of almost tribal drums deepens the fairly chthonic nature of Uncoiled. This is seen in tracks such as "Veil of Illumination," "Offering of the Seven Limbs," and "Consolatrix Afflictorium," and definitely helps to break up the thick, reverbed atmosphere presented on the album. The mention of this thick atmosphere brings up the most difficult part of Uncoiled; for the most part, the songs all sound very similar and it's hard to differentiate one from another. While this isn't always a bad thing, it's harder to chalk up to theme and leitmotif when the album runs so long. 9 songs at 68 minutes needs something a bit more to keep the album from becoming one mass of reverbed drone an howl. Taking an idea and running with it is great, but sometimes it becomes too consuming and leaves the idea feeling flat and trite.
Of Earth and Sun's second release, Uncoiled, is an hour plus of thick drones and vocal effects drenched in reverb. A lovely soundscape for a ritual to summon a great old one, Uncoiled hits the mark pretty well. However, these successes are overused to fill out the fairly bloated run time