Even though the album The Erosion Of Innocence will soon celebrate its first anniversary, I still feel the urge to write down my (in-depth / interesting / innocent / naïve / necessary / clumsy - cross out what does not apply) thoughts about it…
I am always excited when I get a new effort via Cryo Chamber. This time, however, I was extremely thrilled, because The Erosion Of Innocence seems to be a collaboration of two excellent artists who work together for the very first time (as far as I know): Robert C. Kozletsky aka Apocryphos (sometimes also written as Apócrýphos) and Empusae’s Nicolas Van Meirhaeghe, offering his crafted duties under his young moniker Penumbral Aethyr. Both guys worked together on the concept, the sonic content, the performance and the production, while mastering was done, carefully following the Cryo Chamber tradition, by the label’s Supreme Number One, Simon Heath (Atrium Carceri, Sabled Sun, Mountain Realm and more).
For most of the releases on Cryo Chamber, Simon takes care of the visuals too via his digitalized skills. This time, however, the artwork and design were done by Christel Morvan, a close acquaintance of Nicolas. The result is stunning. Take the color palette, for instance, working with dark shades of orange and brown, representing an enigmatic, even magic figure in front of a neo-futuristic, post-apocalyptic ruin of a former city. ‘Bones scorched beneath the ash of forgotten empires, echoing with the memory of pride’… Ah, isn’t this an absolute visualization of the aural side of The Erosion Of Innocence?
FYI: released in an edition of 200 copies, being a six-panel digipack CD…
The Erosion Of Innocence is a heavy work, clocking almost one hour (!), meticulously divided into seven separated yet coherent chapters. It’s a work about the futile existence and self-destructive nature of the human (un)kind, a reflection of how we destroy everything around us, and eventually ourselves as well. ‘The world was not ended; it swallowed itself in ritual silence. […] Wrought from the sinew of the beast, nursed on the breast of war, cradled in the shadow of its own delusions’. The album’s concept must be seen as, and I quote, ‘the psalm of this unraveling. A liturgy for the ruins of thought, a dirge for the carcasses of ideals.
As from the first notes on the album (through opener Cradle Of The Sickness), one feels the burdensome, oppressive weight of the concept through the magnificence of sonic artistry by Nicolas and Robert. Long-formed waves of synth manufacturing, slowly undulating sound-clouds, drenched in sinister, exanimate spheres, continuously evolving, introducing onerous drones that fade away and then again return… Imagine the hint of apocalyptic symphonic grandeur, the injection of multiple claustrophobic layers of analog keyboard elegance, and the use of additional sampled tunes and post-organic synthetics (sorry, this last part is a disturbed brainchild of my sedated mind; sedated by the intriguing aural aesthetics that characterize this hauntingly fair effort). Morality In Collapse exceeds the first visionary track for delving deeper into the ruined landscape. Through principles of (Post / Death / Black) Industrial, through allusions of horrifying episodes by so-called Lovecraftian sound-waves, through eerie, dissociated noise-scapes, and through confusing, macabre textures, the listener gets guided into a landscape where air, light and hope are swallowed by wrath and vengeance of the gods. This Music is so confronting, so heavy-weighted, so claustrophobic. And that’s how the album progresses: pervading deeper into this world of sacrifice, penitence, desperation and illness.
It is remarkable how secretly profuse this album sounds like. The auditive majesty that characterizes The Erosion Of Innocence permanently dwells in dimensions of doom, grimness, and murk, with every fragment offering its own part of this dismal story. The sagacious mixture of reverberating apocalyptic walls, obfuscated drones, ritualistic soundwaves (oh yes, here surely dwells a hint of ceremonial profundity), industrialized ambiences, field-recorded additions (samples and percussions, like these menacing, slowly pounding drums in The Silent Architect, strengthening the doomed atmosphere of abyssal isolation) and disconsolate structures, results in a resplendent opus magnum that permanently reveals new elements, hidden details, and enigmatic noise-designing.
And when the dusk descends - no lament, no witness, only the whisper of innocence unmade, and the echoes of tears that never reached the earth…
https://cryochamber.bandcamp.com/album/the-erosion-of-innocence
https://www.concreteweb.be/reviews/ap%C3%B3cr%C3%BDphos
https://www.concreteweb.be/reviews/ap%C3%B3cr%C3%BDphos-0
https://www.concreteweb.be/reviews/ap%C3%B3cr%C3%BDphos-1
https://www.concreteweb.be/reviews/ashtoreth-penumbral-aethyr
https://www.concreteweb.be/reviews/empusae-klankdal
https://www.concreteweb.be/reviews/onus
https://www.concreteweb.be/reviews/cryo-chamber-collaboration
https://www.concreteweb.be/reviews/cryo-chamber-collaboration-0
https://www.concreteweb.be/reviews/various-artists-reutoff-tribute