A short one, for it deals with a re-release; yet one that surely deserves some additional support…
For some unexplainable reason, I just noticed that I did not finish and publish my review for The Baring Teeth, Dev-I-Ant’s debut for Raubbau. I will soon make it up with a review for A Place Of Warmth And Tears. Yet until then, first this: my thoughts on 2020’s Progression Of The Wolf.
This recording was finished and self-released in 2020 (and eventually mastered by the one and only Simon Heath); and now it gets re-issued via Reverse Alignment. It’s a collection of seven hymns that were created by Anthony Prugo (voices + lyrics; ‘ant’ in the band’s moniker) and Devin Sabatini (song-writing + instrumentation; the ‘dev’-part of this project’s name) (the guy behind the new Dark Ambient label Dark Odyssey Records, by the way), showing their mutual passion for darkened visuals (read: horror movies and the likes) and darkened sonics (horror soundtracks, as well as occult, ritual and obscure Drone / Ambient / Industrial Music). While escaping ‘earthly businesses’ for a while in some remote log cabin, somewhere in the distant Canadian woods, the concept for Progression Of The Wolf came to reality. That almost stoned-shamanistic-post-organic-ritualistic-transcendental touch surely does cover the aural result.
And that’s what this is all about: the aural definition that characterises Progression Of The Wolf. As from the opener The Cloven Kiss, one can sort of ‘dissect’ the own-faced approach by this duo. The ‘spine’ is created around a deeply-doomed, somewhat reverberating Dark Bass Drone, like a monumental footstep that ominously approaches, gloomy yet scarifying for sure. This obscure ambience gets penetrated by metallic sounds, creepy voices and atrocious sampling with a futuro-horrific character. At almost half of this first track, few spoken words join, while the sonic sculpting slowly transforms into asphyxiating proportions. I think that it is not incomprehensible to refer to some of Eighth Tower Records’ rather Lovecraft-inspired Dark Ambient illuminati while listening to / experiencing certain doom-cinematic fragments. There are no huge explosive moments or sudden breaks or so; yet then again these eight minutes oppress and mesmerize the whole of the time.
And that is more or less what Progression Of The Wolf’s content stands for: little monotonous and long-stretched layers of Dark Drone Ambient, with these quaint, unique injections: that warm yet inauspicious voice (rarely used yet of importance), those well-thoughts field recordings (like bells, footsteps on dry leaves (I think), or freezing wind, amongst many other sounds), accessory synth-lines (often covering the whole with ghastly disturbance and inescapable usurpation), and those mechano-metallic noises and industrialized additions. It creates a feeling of discomfort, of anguish, of uncertainty, of nausea; of desire and ardency too. Roaring and rumbling ‘melodies’ weave an all-enwrapping web, sucking all light out of the last sparkles of vivacity, leaving the exhausted listener as an empty shell, convulsing, gasping for air, praying for illumination and salvation.
https://reversealignment.bandcamp.com/album/progression-of-the-wolf
https://dev-i-ant.bandcamp.com/album/progression-of-the-wolf-2