Getting a package in the mail from Forever Plagued Records is always a pleasant surprise. Over the past few years, they’ve quietly become a force to be reckoned with, releasing albums by some of the finest bands the US black metal underground has to offer, such as Demoncy, Darkest Grove and Incursus. Their latest offering is Aseity, the debut album from Philadelphia, PA’s Esoterica, a recording that not only continues Forever Plagued’s hot streak of killer USBM releases, but also raises the bar.
Lead by vocalist/guitarist A. Poole (whom more astute USBM acolytes will recognize as the mastermind behind Chaos Moon), Esoterica play a heavily atmospheric style of black metal that falls somewhere between Xasthur’s symphonies of suicidal buzz and Weakling’s lengthy, relentless epics. Don’t let the Weaking comparison fool you though, as Aseity isn’t “Cascadian”-sounding in the slightest; sure, a few songs barrel past the ten minute mark, but Esoterica bring more varied influences and more interesting songwriting to the table, rather than ripping off Dead as Dreams wholesale. The music here is cold, dreamy and spiteful, like a drug-induced vision of leaving Earth’s atmosphere and drifting off to ice planet Hell.
Seriously, I swear that the temperature in the room drops ten degrees when I put this album on. It might have something to do with the blue cover and the fact that I’m currently freezing my ass off in the bowels of the Midwest (a snowstorm has started as write this), but I honestly believe this is one of the coldest-sounding records I’ve heard since Transilvanian Hunger. Aseity is characterized by an eerie, droning ambience that’s downright hypnotic; it’s in the way the guitars and layers of synths play off one another, with Poole’s playing recalling the mesmerizing brilliance of Burzum’s “Jesus’ Tod,” but sustained for an entire album and with more riff variation. When was the last time you happened upon a black metal album that produced the same “trance-out” effect as those early Norwegian 2nd wave classics?
Indeed, there’s a good chance Aseity would’ve cracked my year-end list had I gotten the promo in time; it’s simply one of the finest examples of USBM I’ve heard in quite some time, right up there with recent albums from Inquisition and Lord Time. Esoterica may not be reinventing the wheel, but what they lack in originality they make up for with craftsmanship, conviction and the ability to take the listener on a journey. It’s abrasive and beautiful and aggressive and strangely soothing all at once; one of those albums best experienced on headphones in a pitch-black room that are becoming more and more rare with each passing year.
http://www.foreverplaguedrecords.com/
THKD 