Esoterica were formed in 2011 by Alexander Poole when his main act Chaos Moon split up (FYI: Chaos Moon reformed very recently). Under the moniker of Esoterica, he released a couple of EP’s and a split, and now also a full album, called Aseity. This one is produced and mixed by Kate Nathan, the guy behind the Plastik Musik-label (which did release the 2012-split New World Black Metal), who took care of the artwork as well. For this creation, Alex (v, g) worked together with bass player Steven Blackburn, one of his colleagues in Lithotome and session musician for Chaos Moon (the both of them also act as guest / live musicians in, for example, Heimnar or Benighted In Sodom). The drum parts were done by one of Italy’s most famous drummers, Gionata Potenti, known from, for example, Frostmoon Eclipse, Handful Of Hate, Manetheren, Acherontas, Benighted In Sodom, Glorior Belli, Deathrow and tens of others. Quite impressive, not?!
The six tracks last for forty four minutes and come, despite the ‘professional’ mix and production, with a sound way beneath acceptance. Once again: a raw, unpolished underground sound is great, a cheap, naïve garage-sound sucks. A slight nuance be made, however: this sound surely fits and after a while, it does complete the whole. There are no hollow drums, or a stupid focus on one or another instrument… Yet still… But hereby: subject closed.
When it comes to the compositions, well, it’s quite disturbing. The core-essence is focused on raw, mostly fast, aggressive and rhythmic Black Terror outbursts with a repetitive character rather than a melodic one. There are more than just a limited handful of ambient and/or industrial excerpts (intermezzos, intros and outros, etc.), and the balance in between ultra-fast, almost blasting pieces and slowly-pounding, funereally doomy parts, is more than ‘just nice’. A couple of parts are closely related to the chilly USBM-scene, while some others are comparable to a generally-traditionalised (Underground) scene, with everything in between.
Consider it a mixture of Benighted In Sodom, Krieg, Weakling, Leviathan, Ævangelist, Moon, Xasthur, Forgotten Tomb, Blut Aus Nord and, of course, Chaos Moon.
FYI: the vinyl-edition (LP) is to be released in June via Demonhood Productions.