Some music is created to entertain its listeners while some music is created to challenge its listeners, the album we are reviewing today kind of falls into the cracks between the two, a dark somewhat dank feeling collection of songs that sport a droning almost funereal dynamic. The band behind this release go by the name Catapult the Sun and hail from Athens, Greece and have, over a fairly short period of time, built a reputation for delivering thrumming grooves of a sedate and heavy nature. The release we speak of today goes by the title "Dark Sun Festivities" an opus much in the same slow low and heavy vein as its predecessors "Human Empire Falls" and "CATHODE", but this time with a darker cinematic quality.
"Dark Sun Festivities"
begins with "Queen of Solstice"
the songs intro, a hotch-potch of sparse percussion, droning guitar noise and
feedback, leads us to the sound of sampled laughter slowly turning to screams
which then serves as a signal for the band to dive deep into the achingly slow
low doomic groove that holds sway throughout the songs duration. This is
a piece of music that is bleak dank and repetitive, its intentional monotony
only lifted by its swirling guitar textures, but for all its repetition and
monotony it also possesses a hypnotic quality that sucks you in as a listener
and refuses to let go until its last note fades into the ether. We spoke of
this album having a cinematic quality and that is no more evident than on next
tome "Dystopiate Haze" its dark
droning textures. thundering percussion and ringing guitar motifs giving the
songs extended intro and almost space-like dynamic that would not sound
out of place as the soundtrack to some sort of "Event Horizon" or "Pandorum"
type sci-fi horror movie. The song does eventually morph into a thrumming
slowed down Sabbathian groove in its
later stages but by then the damage is done and you will have already switched
on all the lights around your listening station just to make sure there are no
stitched together psychopaths lurking in the shadows. The worryingly titled "Our Pigs Will Drink Your King's Blood" is up
next an off-centred jam built around a heavily slurred guitar refrain that in
places sounds like the riff from Alice In Chains "Check My
Brain" being played at half speed, again the song is heavily
repetitive but again, thanks in parts to its soaring dark guitar textures,
proves totally mesmerising. "A Shrine of Salt"
follows, a pulsating tome that sees Catapult the Sun bringing just a tad more diversity to their attack,
albeit more in its subtle use of loud/quiet/loud dynamics, dynamics which see
the songs groove routinely swelling and dissipating. Final song " Slowly We Drone" is less a title and more a
statement of the bands intent for what they wanted to bring to the table with
this song, the band utilising deep reverberating bass lines and slow deliberate
drumming to form a dank dark bedrock for sustained guitar notes that hang in
the air until they slowly fall away to be replaced by others.
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