Thursday, January 22, 2015

Mare Cognitum – Phobos Monolith

November 3, 2014 • I, Voidhanger Records

Taking atmospheric black metal to another level—the cosmos. Okay, so black metal bands have been doing the whole super-atmospheric space thing for decades already so there's really nothing new going on here. But I have to say that Phobos Monolith is quite a pleasant surprise.

Its one flaw out of the way first: Albums like this, with a few overlong tracks, sometimes tend to have a bit of filler. The beginning of this album in particular does have a bit too much ramp-up—one huge overlong intro where we're noodling around with slow rhythms and melodic clean-ish guitar lines that don't really go anywhere. I'm just sitting here waiting for the actual music to kick in instead. I guess I should have expected it, but it still always disappoints me just a little bit when this happens.

However, when the music does get going it's quite good, and surprisingly the middle two tracks don't hold back at all. It's not just plug-and-play generic blasting, either—there is plenty of that, but there's enough actual musical proficiency and embellishments in the songwriting that keep things interesting. Just the occasional chugging riff, progressive drum line, a little ambient background sound to fill things out. Or perhaps some toned-down shoegazey type stuff in "Noumenon". Or the sheer no-holds-barred intensity at some places, like how "Entropic Hallucinations" starts off with just the most intense riff ever. There's a lot going on, though it may take some time to unearth it all.

But this being one of my favorite kinds of music lately, I'll call myself a fan right off the bat. The genre may have been in a slump lately, but for fans this might be one to actually pay attention to.

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