Tony Tears — Music From The Astral Worlds (2000-2014)
Before I move onto discussing the sonic contents of this releases, it’s really worth pointing out the rather effective & well thought out look of this release. The three CD’s each come in their own double sided colour card slip sleeves which take in photos of creepy & morbid looking statues. On top of this you get six full colour cards taking in the original cover artwork of all the releases. Added to this you get a full colour fold out mini poster- taking in liner notes on one side, and on the other pictures from through-out the projects life span. Toping it all off you get a selection of coloured yet lo-fi, violent and ghoulish drawings illustrating the inside of the box. Clearly a lot of love & effort has been put into this packaging and it nicely enhances the sonics with-in.
Disc one takes in two albums- we get Fears And Sensations In The Claustrophobic Mirror( which originally came out on CDR in 2000), and Voci Dal Passato( from 2010). And this disc takes in fourteen tracks in all- and these move between throbbing & weaving mixers of atmospheric organ ‘n’ synth work-outs. Onto tolling & lo-fi mixes of doom riff & drum machine grooves pitted with muffled & wavering vocals. Through to lengthy explorations into moody, purring, spacey synth craft that’s weaved with wavering guitar leads, and finished off with a slur of backwards vocals & chugging doominess.
Disc two takes in three releases, and these come in the form of 2004’s The Reality Before, 2004’s Le Entita’ Della Savazione, and 2007’s All My Black. This disc features six tracks in all- with three of the tracks falling between the 10 to 20 minute mark. These tracks move between slurred & brooding mixes of wonky synth craft, crawling bass ‘n’ guitar texturing. Onto slight off key church organ marchers which are jarred & grated by creepy noise matter, ghost house keyboards, and weaving guitar soloing . Through to more dramatic & horror filled blends of doomy & darkly rocking guitar craft, organ sustained, and male Italian vocals.
Lastly disc three takes in just one release, and it’s the most recent of the set 2014’s Vortice. And this disc takes in another six tracks- and these run between five & twenty minutes a piece. I guess you’d say this release is the most layered & sophisticated ( through still odd/ off-kilter) of all the material here- and once again it’s a mix of wavering/ horror to spacey synth/ organ work, layers of chanted/ dramatic/ sometime operatic Italian male vocals, creepy noises texturing, & doomy/ clear moody guitar layers.
Though all the material here was conceived & recoreded in the last fourteen years, you really wouldn’t think it’s that modern, as sound wise this feels more like the lost recordings of some strange cult Italian doom/ synth band from either the late 1970’s or 1980’s. All in all this is a really nicely presented set that will appeal to those who enjoy horror fed & dramatic sonic’s that sit somewhere between doom, horror synth soundtracking, and slight more experimental/ off-kilter fare.