Frozen Light

A short review, though dealing with a masterly executed album…

Maybe a strange one on this site, but seen the label involved, I think it was my duty to write down my thoughts on this recording, for both label and the band do deserve some additional support and promotion for sure.

Exactly two years after the grandiose recording One Lumen In The Past (http://www.concreteweb.be/reviews/exit-grey), Exit In Grey come up with моменты (read: ‘momenty’), getting released once more via Moscow-based Frozen Light. I would like to refer to that review when interested in the history of Exit In Grey (or that specific album; why shouldn’t you anyway?).

For almost fifteen years, Canadian act As Autumn Calls dooms all over the globe with their messages of despair, loneliness, tristesse and grief. The band was formed in 2005 by James Hawkins (grunts and bass) and Andrew Ilves (guitars and clean vocals), and in 2009 they self-released the great three-track EP Emotionless.

Just two months after their grandiose debut The Syncretic Labyrinth (released via Spain’s Sphingidae and Germany’s Attenuation Circuit, home to Emerge), the Spanish project Sudaria returns with Lucid Nightmares, a monstrous successor of the debut for sure. This second effort is available digitally via the Bandcamp page of the project itself, as well as the label involved, and the latter, Russia’s finest Frozen Light, also took care of the compact disc edition.

Zinc Room is a Russian outfit by Alexander ‘I’ Syromyatnikov (the same person who runs Evil Dead Productions), assisted once again by Andrey Kein (both as session musician as being the long-time mixer / master; also known from e.g. Corona Barathri, Church Of Howling Dog, Sol Mortuus, Chaotic Bound Systems, Carved Image Of Emptiness). Both are (were) formerly active as Prognostic Zero.

As you do know (or not, but then you will as from now on, so keep reading), Frozen Light are a label with many aural angles, yet always with ‘obscurity’ in mind. Of course, it is not different for this third recording by Italian act Zoloft Evra.

Even though this album was released two years ago, I still want to write down my thoughts on it. There are several reasons. First of all, the quality of the Aural Art. I will come back to this immediately. Also of importance is the fact that Frozen Light recently released the successor of this album. In preparation for my review on that new album, which is called моменты (‘momenty’, meaning ‘moments’), I prefer to come back on this former release first.

I have always adored that imaginative, winterly Ambient stuff à la Moloch, Symbiosis, Sieghetnar, Vinterriket, Nebula VII and the likes, and another act within this non-limitative list is Italian one-man project Winterblood.

Sometimes it is almost an orgiastic pleasure to introduce an underestimated act, one that truly deserves deep-going fame. Okay, EugeneKha surely is a well-known name within its specific genre, and within the Russian Electronic / Ambient scene especially, but I wonder about his notoriety right here. I do follow this project for a couple of years, but this act has tens of releases, with several I have not got through yet. But what I listened to in the meantime was really satisfying, without any exception (live material included).