Now, the Aching Aeons
You know, their previous album
„Counting Our Scars” was something spectacular bringing lethal
sounds after many years of dry spell. Still having in mind the
terrible number three, I am somewhere in the middle, torn between joy
with a new title at last and unimaginable regret, because 2017 year
seems to be most significant date in their career being just the last
one as they announced it seriously. With such an attitude towards
these forty-four minutes I proceed to face the thing. And to put it
briefly, they didn't fail. If the front cover isn't a strong point
right now, the production from Necromorbus depths is a highlight
here, but as compared to the predecessor it got rawer sound with more
readable bass lines. The first song couldn't be better way to open
the album up: „Silent Rapture” confirms extremely good condition
of Swedes even though seven long years have passed since I was
counting my scars. Using the same methods of execution, musicians
delivered me fantastic death metal once again. Although it is natural
follow-up of the number four, the Swedes put emphasis on simplicity
describing it in one word. The album is way faster, and such paces
dominate. At first spins mentioned speedy marks were the first thing
that made my senses open wide and even they do not play technical
stuff, I needed many careful meetings to know what the album is all
about. Anyway, there is no song similar to „The Moment Is Gone”,
yet everything the band is known for, is served here in killing
proportions.
As the whole „Through Aching Aeons”
is incredibly equal, I cannot choose the leader. And I really don't
want to do it, I just absorb the music from the first to the last
second. That's the way it works fully and I always try to listen in
such a way, completely absent to reality. Like their classic titles.
again nine songs that left me speechless, no matter if I listen to
the simplest vulcanoes of all-consuming energy in „Spineless
Kingdom”, „In This Embrace” and „Slither” or songs
containing absolutely splendid layers of catchiness in the opener,
title track or „Beneath the Bleeding Sky”. In this dish, the band
managed to stick compelling parts of acoustic guitars in „Beneath
the Bleeding Sky” as well as desolation-bathed opening piano tunes
in „Divine Blindness”, both as something new for them definitely.
But giving all the tracklist isn't my purpose, each track is made of
Desultory stamp and their musical madness I've admired breathless for
so many years. And if both music and lyrics feature pervasive
sadness, despair, woe or lack of hope, the last „Our Departure”
merges all the feelings up, multiplies it and makes a speech to me
that this is the inevitable end...
Waiting for this album seemed to have
no final releasing date. Soon after distressing news appeared and
somehow changed the way I felt this last band's work. In any case,
Desultory left the scene excellently bringing me another fantastic
title: with no weak moments, musical dullness, stagnation or copying
the sounds once created. Every single while beams with genuine and
passionate music created by mature musicians and their off the chain
visions along the way. I fully understand the band says the final
farewell to the scene in best possible way, just delivering the goods
one more time, yet being at war with my thoughts I am now prone to
write that „Through Aching Aeons” is kinda Pyrrhic victory. Even
if every band will reach its end and put the instruments to the
grave, it is too early for such a band Desultory is. Oversimplifying:
extremely good music, many souls broken... Anyway, I don't wanna bawl
my eyes out and pour my heart to anyone. Desultory has brilliant
releases on its deathly trail, it has become one of the best musical
forms since I've listened to the debut for the first time while
deflowering pirated tape with wrong song order. The newest one is
nothing but a real confirmation of their domination in my metal
world. And still, our journey through those aching aeons has been
lasting since 1993... into eternity!
(...your trace will never fade...)
98/100
-Tlacaxipehualiztli
(written in May, 2018)
