Astarot / From The Torrent & The Fountain

Album Title: 
There’s Never Silence In The Mist
Release Date: 
Thursday, January 1, 2015
Distribution: 
Review Type: 

In order to promote this somewhat underestimated split-release, I will try to give it some additional promotion, because There’s Never Silence In The Mist deserves this. And so does Satanath Records.

There’s Never Silence In The Mist was released two and a half years ago, and it is a collaboration in between two Mexican one-man projects. First we can enjoy three compositions by Astarot, which did release a new album pretty recently via Metallic Media (hi Tim, I’m impatiently waiting…), and last year, on November 8th 2014, Concreteweb uploaded the As Leaves Fall album, which was released via Russia’s Satanath Records too; check it out! On this split, band leader / multi-instrumentalist Gonzalo ‘Astarot’, who’s involved with Abysmal Depths (review on The Pain Shows In Dead Woods: see update October 11th 2014), Suicidal Years or Alasthor too, was joined once again by vocalist and colleague in the very same acts mentioned above, Alfonso ‘Tortured’. First there’s the instrumental title song, which dwells within spheres of desolate and hypnotic ambient soundscapes, melodic and integer, chilly and obscure. With its nine minutes, the next track, Unfortunate Moment, is the longest piece for Astarot. Tortured screams (you can say as well: Tortured screams, aha) of a hysterical kind and some grim yells get initially joined by ultra-slow melodies and mesmerizing keyboards, before turning little faster and more aggressive after a couple of minutes. Still the keyboards are of huge importance, for they are somewhat the carriers of the melodies; guitars, bass and drums are mainly presented to support the rhythmic structures. Nothing wrong with that at all, I think! The slower approach returns within the second half of this hymn, yet the fast-paced grande finale is so overwhelming… The third piece is an untitled and, once again, instrumental one, being more classical qua melody, with rainy noise at the background, and based on synth passages and grand piano melodies especially.

From The Torrent & The Fountain (nice moniker for sure, based on an excerpt of E. A. Poe), aka FT&TF, are an outfit by Paria Rahu, but they broke up shortly after the release of the second album. Here From The Torrent & The Fountain bring two very lengthy tracks, respectively ten and eighteen minutes of length. …And The River Flows and Embracing The Absence are a mixture of ice-cold and raw, nihilistic and primitive Black Metal, based on primal melodies and minimal rhythms. It’s the sonic definition of necrotic ugliness and first wave-oriented aggression, yet the simplicity gets done so fabulously… Really, this is part of a soundtrack to promote the sulphur stench of the Underworld. Of course the sound quality sucks (did you expect a huge production in an expensive studio?), but it strengthens the rawness and barbarism of this most beautiful ugliness. But in general, and that goes for the second song especially, it sounds too strongly like a cheap rehearsing result, and a minor effort to lift the sound quality up to a higher level, would have been appreciated a lot by undersigned. Besides, it would / could have become too much, seen the length of the tracks, if FT&TF weren’t that ingenious (yeah, I am exaggerating, of course, but I try to make a point) to add a somewhat epic acoustic intermezzo in the opening track, and something comparable within Embracing The Absence, though the first additional intermezzo’ish one sounding like some frenzy Lugubrum-madness with distorted electronic banjo, haaarghhh… The second half of this song, starting at about ten minutes, is much more integer and sober, with subtle melodious passages on acoustic guitars initially, joined by modest claps / percussions after a while; this stuff building up towards a peak that, unfortunately, never gets reached. And so this experience fades away…

For sure Astarot did not come up with their best material to date, and FT&TF disappoint with that inferior sound, and that’s why I can’t go into positive superlatives. But at the other hand, both projects have something unique, something that must appeal to open-minded fans of the underground. And that’s the reason why this review must be seen as a reason, a push, a proposal to look after this split-album.

73/100