Crown Of Ashes - At The Throne Ov Kyne [Altar Of Waste - 2014]This cdr comes in the standard Altar Of Waste packaging: a dvd case and a smart, professional looking inlay. Part of the black metal-esque design, involves an inside cover that’s a tad hard to read - either that or my eyesight is failing dismally. “At The Throne Ov Kyne” has eight tracks, divided into two halves: “Mundus” and “Anima”; with the release dedicated by Crown Of Ashes to “Nature” and “Mother Kyne”. (Kyne might be a deity from the Elder Scrolls video game, its really very unclear.) The black metal association is worth keeping in mind, here. It would be stretching things to suggest that “At The Throne Ov Kyne” is a black metal album, but there are clear similarities to be seen with the more raw end of the genre. The two obvious elements to be mentioned are the use of drum machines and the generally washed out, saturated production; both often found in crude, harsh black metal. The drum machine is employed for pummelling, distorted rhythms; around which, swathes of blackened noise rise and fall. On “II - Gutting The Earth”, these beats are foregrounded; a stinging, shattering, percussive battery that brings Cut Hands to mind (though without suffering any of that project’s pretensions). “IV - Bleeding The Oceans” begins with literal waves of dirty noise before introducing hyperactive, straining drum machine skree; aided and abetted by acidic synth squiggles and a noisy, crawling bass. The tones of this “crawling bass” are found throughout the album: sounds pushed to saturation point and beyond - to the extent, that the spacey drifts that ebb and flow through “V - As Life Fades” are reduced to stuttering annihilation by its end. The next track, “VI - As Society Crumbles”, perfectly combines both the drum machine and washed out production elements; with delayed percussive thuds seemingly scraping themselves out of existence, as the track proceeds. The longest, and by far the most affecting piece, is “VII - As Death Reigns”. This very simply unravels a loop over nearly twelve minutes, with Crown Of Ashes altering it with the smallest tweaks and nudges: enthralling listening.
“At The Throne Ov Kyne” is a good, solid album; though very much cut from one piece of cloth. If you don’t like the eerie, noisy drones and rhythm of the first, short track, the chances are you won’t like much else here. Fittingly, the images and connotations brought to mind by the album, are those that surround notions of “scorched earth”. The sounds befit the track titles I’ve mentioned above, conjuring a scarred, desolate and defeated landscape.   Martin P
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