Year of No Light / Altar of Plagues

April 2012 • Radar Swarm / Music Fear Satan

I have always seen split releases as more of a curiosity than anything, and an annoyance at worst, like trying to get the complete discography of one band you love but having to sit through some painfully bad stuff on the other side (I'm looking at you, Corrupted). So when one comes along that I know I'll enjoy both halves of, it's a good thing. Usually splits are for one more popular band to promote another, but I'm not really sure who's promoting who here—I have stuff by both of these bands and they seem equally obscure to me. Anyway, even if like me you are familiar with either, this split is probably best avoided—it's not a great moment for either band.

Year of No Light's track is pretty typical atmospheric sludge, although this track seems a lot more generic than what I've heard on Nord. "Møn" is your average slow, heavy, plodding, doomy metal that slowly builds up over its ten minutes to a wall of sound, but it barely does anything on the way. There's just one riff in the last two minutes and it's not a satisfying payoff to the buildup, and then the track just ends out of nowhere. I suppose it makes okay background music, but it's simply not interesting to stand on its own. (Some vocals might have helped a little bit.)

Altar of Plagues' side fares a bit better, but not by much. It still has a painfully long buildup (I guess I shouldn't have expected less from either band), but they at least do a little bit more in the time they have. I was a bit disappointed to hear more of a sludge/doom sound here as well instead of their usual black metal sound, which they only put back on after the lengthy eleven-minute intro, and it doesn't even sound like the band at all. The climax of the song is alright, if a little underwhelming, but like the other side I feel let down.

I know split releases can often be a place for bands to try something a bit different, but this whole release feels kind of wasteful to me. Both bands have put out fantastic albums before, but here it seems like they didn't want to put any effort into what they were doing. I just hope this isn't the sort of direction either band takes in the future.

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