Yesss! That was my first thought when I heard, about one year ago, that there would be a new Satanath album out soon. There are two main reasons to explain my enthusiasm. First of all, I do love the guy behind the project - figuratively, evidently, since he has not the body of a beautiful female human being with huge br… Sorry, I lost my focus… No, seriously, Aleksey is a fantastic guy who has two fine projects, Satanath and Abigorum (the latter too is such a majestic project), and he runs a couple of fine labels with a diverse yet highly interesting roster: Satanath Records (Russian Federation), Symbol Of Domination Productions (Belarus) and, quite recently, GrimmDistribution (which used to be the main distribution source for the material previously released on both other labels) (Ukraine). Second reason to explain my happy emotions (don’t worry; my psychiatrist told me that this isn’t but a brief outburst of pseudo-emotional sickness; soon my misanthropic identity will take it all over again!), totally related to the first one, is the sonic pleasure created by the sounds of the Satanath project. To find out more on the former releases, I would like to refer to the reviews I did for these recordings: the self-titled debut (http://www.concreteweb.be/reviews/satanath) (which was actually a compilation of older material), 2014’s majestic album Deep Universe Vacuum (http://www.concreteweb.be/reviews/satanath-0), or the frenzy split with Hulduefni, i AM esper and Paleozoic (http://www.concreteweb.be/reviews/hulduefni-i-am-esper-paleozoic-satanath). Indeed, yesss! was what came to (my beautiful) mind…
With Your Personal Copy, which you can take quite literally, Aleksey came up with an ironic concept. The 500 copies are hand-numbered and signed by the creator himself (your personal copy it is indeed), It comes with a twelve-page booklet that is sort of a collection of colourless black-and-white designs, which you can colour and paint as you wish (artwork done by Dima (Dmitry), Bulldozer Arts) - very much it will be your personal copy! Smart in its simplicity!
Another surprise is the number of track titles on this album: twenty! Seriously? What a difference with the past. Okay, the enormous length of the album remains (all former releases were enormously lengthy, and this one clock eighty minutes once again), but still it was strange to notice. As usual, these titles come from a complex tongue from Outer Space, from a far distance where the origins of Satanath come from. …why it is quite easy to call these sounds Space Ambient…
As from opening track Peitefuv, you will be surprised for another time. There has been a permanently ongoing evolution in the stylistic approach of this project, but Satanath explore new dimensions. It sounds like a mixture of Space Ambient and Cosmic Dungeon Synth, based on floating sounds, added with astral noises, Psybient-alike elements and post-dimensional structures. The subtle yet important voices at the end strengthen the bizarre feeling. I do not think it would be such a strange thing to refer to Cintecele Diavolui (an old side-project of Mortiis). Masfois is comparable – so are all tracks – yet it has a more ‘tropic’ feel, without turning towards cheap fiesta. Here, Satanath enter the electrified worlds of the IDM scene too. This started in 2015 with the renewed approach on the split with Hulduefni, i AM esper and Paleozoic, and now that new approach sort of gets finetuned. Next you can also expect acoustic elements, lots of psychedelic sounds, minimal soundwaves, hints of 8-bit / Chiptune Music, the weirdest angles from the Dungeon Synth scene, industrialised electronics, schizoid and neurotic Body Music injected Dub-Step / Chill-Out, some tribal beats, and frenzy spacy soundscapes. Each piece (or almost each single one) has an intriguing flair, sometimes twisted, then again almost danceable, but the strength of this album lies in the coherent execution. Your Personal Copy is not just a collection of individual try-outs, yet a cohesive concept divided in twenty short - and a few lengthy - chapters. The last track, Univraris, is the lengthiest one (9:20), and sort of collects all those higher-mentioned elements, by the way – so if you want to try out, I would recommend listening to this specific piece (though it is the most obscure too on the whole album).
So, no Ritual Noise or Apocalyptic Ambient this time, no Drone or Death Industrial involved, but expect a next highly experimental step within the discography of Satanath, penetrating borderless dimensions beyond our physical universe, based on monotone yet rhythmic and spacelike electronics. So, as said: beware, for this differs enormously from what we might be used to…