Tenebrious — Funereal Ceremonies For The Macabre And Grotesque

The dictionary definition of Tenebrious is something that’s dark, shadowy & obscured. So this two man US horror drone project have  selected an extremely fitting name, as they create a fairly unique sound that’s disorienting, some times noisy, often black psychedelic, but always dark,  unclear & shadowy.

The project has been around since the early 2000's, releasing a handful of CDR splits, eps, and one or two full lengths. The Indianan based project brings together Dustin Redington( of blacked noise drone project Crown Of Bone) & Ralph Bates- the pair create a dense, shifting & often blurred/ darkly hazed sound that utilizes sinister keyboard ambience, dark brooding electronic drone matter, a selection of murky & often difficult to fully discern samples, and the odd shift into dark noise drone territory.

This CDR release takes in four tracks, which last between just over the six minutes to nearing the twenty minute mark. And each track mostly focus down on this thick, brooding yet shifting vibe that’s tar black & heady with hovering horror & malevolent dread. As already mentioned sometimes the tracks do drift towards more noise bound drone end of things, but even when the more searing elements come out the sound still remains undefined, pitch black & most disorientating.  I won’t go into track by track break downs here, as each of the four tracks are fairly shifting & difficult to full describe, also I think with this type of release it’s better to go in un-mapped & find your own way/ take of the shifting & dark sonic land scape with-in.

As always with Altar Of Waste releases this looks colourful, well put together & creative with it’s full colour double sided sleeve. The sleeve takes in two old paintings of Christ on the cross- one with him rotting & surrounded by mourners, and another just up turned picture of him on his own. I can’t criticize the quality or execution of the artwork, as it’s great as usual, through to me some sort of more surreal, swirling & darkly psychedelic artwork would have being more fitting to the work of Tenebrious.

So in conclusion I must say I rather enjoyed the  dark, slowly shifting, and often black psychedelic sonic landscapes with-in "Funereal Ceremonies For The Macabre And Grotesque”, and I very much look forward to hearing more from this duo in the future.