Unearthly Trance — Season of seance, science of silence

In my teenage years, when one said « Doom », I thought about My Dying Bride. Then, a few years ago, I got to hear Electric Wizard’s Dopethrone. It was like discovering a whole new dimension. The Wizard led me to Boris, Sunn, Khanate, Grief and so on. Over the last few months, I got to hear a lot of one dimensional doom bands, which led me to an unwanted state of extra-depression. Was that genre I have come to love so much dead? I was ready to pull the trigger when Unearthly Trance first full-length made his way into my mail-box.

"Winter covering Dark Throne’s Panzerfaust"; thus spake not the nightspirit but Stephen O’Malley (Sunn, Khanate). These few words have been used in a lot of SOS, SOS reviews and being the conformist that I am, I use them too. First, because O’Malley co-produced and mixed the CD, second because it’s probably the best description one could come up with.

Raised by the wolves is bound to be a classic among fans of "grimness" in their music. Slow and dissonant and full of feedback and full of low-end riffs and heavy as shit for six minutes before the threesome is possessed by the evil spirit of Nocturno Culto for a couple of minutes of fabulous blackened rock’n’roll riffs. Fukkking sikkk as some might say. Mass of the phoenix could be described as the meeting of Khanate and Corrupted for a track that, when listened to at maximum volume, “erasesEall notions of time in the listener’s mind. When anti-humanity flourishes is the most Dark Throne-ish track of the album. It rocks in the most dirty, black metalish fashion and Lipynsky’s vocals are up there with most black metal singers. With this very track, UT prove that you can worship Dark Throne, 100% respect their heritage and yet do something totally new in combing it with the darker sides of doom. Wandering winter winds is as oppressive as Winter at their most oppressive and even becomes epic when Lipynsky gives up on the growled vocals and guitar power-chords in favour of a more “melodic"(ahem) singing and “harmonic" guitar melodies. It actually is a real pain in the arse to write about this track: I can’t help playing air-guitar and trying to look grimmm and spiteful. Black heart/Black lung could be considered as a good introduction to the UT sound with its fast / slow bits, the constant heaviness and the necro aspect.  The last track is The aftermath was morbid. Possibly the slowest track on the album, making me think of Grief and Khanate. There really is something you might call perverted about the sound of the song, something sick, making you feel uneasy.  And once more, two minutes before the end of the songs, the pace quickens (a little) but surprisingly it sounds even sicker. A class ending for a truly exciting album.

Apparently the new songs UT have already written sound quite different. Good news: it should bring us some nice surprise for the next album. And, to be quite honest, I’m not quite sure how it would have been possible to top this album without evolution.