Part I conjures up instant scenes of industrial decay and ruinous apocalypse. It is as if we are venturing in a forgotten city of the Elder Gods, whisperings and droning wails on the howling wind. The sound here echoes and reverberates in a cavernous, cyclopean space- this is noise not meant to be beheld by man. A voice of foreign tongue or even more foreign incantation stirs on the wind, and a low drone commences and ceases in cyclic manner.
The Nameless City breathes, and with it beats the heart faster and faster. Shuffling echoes march out even as structural supports groan and creak with unspeakable weights. The water floods in once more as the wind blows unceasingly across the landscape. Enigmatic bubbles glisten in the pitch dark as a low, mechanic hum machines across space and time- simple and eternal. The feeling of confusion is a brother to fear.
Part II brings us right into the thick of it once more, with a fast fading, fast panning drone of mystical noise. Steam vents out of craven pipes of non-metallic alloys. Electric discharges spike and coalesce out of hidden alcoves. A drum of unsteady yet brutal beat charges out of the cavernous depths to blast our ears with the oppressive sinister aura of and chant of the unspeakable hordes that lurk just beyond the weak walls of our reality. Time is sundered and broken- scattered like glittering shards of glass on the wind even as hisses and cries in the demoniac night shriek and echo unseen dirges to only the most obscure of deific cosmic urges.
Like a veil smothering the screaming mouth of noise, the great drum ceases with static echoes and a low gasp of murderous silence. All is quiet. Soon we hear it once more- stragglers of the horde that we barely escaped, gasping and salivating in the darkness.
Part III brings demented chants amid abysmally antediluvian instruments of malign sound and shape. It is as if we are come into the court of the blind idiot god Azagthoth himself, face to face with the nuclear chaos who holds the entire cosmos within his mind. Dreaming in green chaos. The assembled shadows maligned howl and laugh and dance to the droning tune of flesh drums and echoing howls. In this noise lies something of a human element, a mortal sound of composition.
Yet anything true and understandable flees once more as the walls creak outward and snap their masts and rigging upon the gates of reality. Echoing chants and howls shriek forth in eerie unison and near-orchestral rhythm, creating a sound that is strangely beautiful to behold, the last vocal undulations fading before a deep growl.
Part IV begins with a sudden and repeating vibration of crystal and glass, movements of rasping tongues splaying over dryly shrieking and calling throats. Summoning screams presage a sudden chord of almost electrically heavy noise- like the slamming of great obsidian blocks of stone and steel in the uncharted depths below. Chants of Arabic and tainted English, no doubt inspired by the ancient Sumerian and texts of the Mad Arab himself, spill forth in infrequent bursts as the Nameless City prepares for the coming ritual. The shrieks and chaotic emanations cease and falter in the face of a hushed silence, the only sound a faint hiss of sinister intent.
The soundscape reveals itself to us with echoes of a space more vast than the mind could ever know, ragged breaths of whispering wails and shuddering creaks and moans creating distance and time for our mortally bound thoughts. A grasshopper, or what one would think to be a grasshopper, almost silently plays its chirps as an electronic sound of panning confusion sets in. Brief play on snare drums. Resonating pipes and ominous crackles of colossal amounts of unearthly energy. The very wind is charged with exotic particles. Ringing vibrations and paroxysms of crystal and glass return as a voice decidedly human sounds out from the depths. We do not exist. Strangely, the insertion of mortal noise is unreal when compared to what we have past experienced. Dim shades and half-remembered images swim before a woman's words, as if half remembered and half conjured from some other place.
Part V greets us with a sharp, contorted sound of straining noise. A buzzing, droning countenance of sighed breaths breathed in the dank dark gloom. The desert's wastes call out, as witchfire flickers and the souls of the dammned wail up from another world both terrible and horrible. The souls reach a crescendo, briefly creating sounds of ritualistic symphony that would not sound out of place on an Arktau Eos album. Drum hits in the deep- titanic and inescapable sighs the things that wait and creep in the darkness beyond sight.
The sound here is as overwhelming as it is all-encompassing. Blasts of strangely sounding drums intersperse with deeper noises and melodic sounds that don't quite fit the tone that has been sustained thus far. The increasing tempo of what sounds like a tabla combined with chaotic snares and a faint cowbell give a decidedly Arabic feel, fitting partially well enough within the mystique of Lovecraft's "The Nameless City". Wails and drums and all, there are some sectors to this area of the album that seem out of place, though perhaps this is intended- the Nameless City is by extension nameless and thus encompassing of all cultures as it is none of them.
Part VI calls and binds the daemon of the desert, echoing vast sweeps and synths of energy through the limitless space. Aegyptian melodies faintly stir among the deserted obelisks carved with forgotten runes. Undercurrents of force and lightning arc through the sky as the city falls to sleep, stones faintly shifting as a deep bass rhythm tolls out the dreaded paranoia of what should not be. The sound of a deep heartbeat pervades the scene, soon giving way to a vicious tear of sound. Silent and mystical crystals glisten in the rocks even as something in the distance shifts and shuffles amongst the elder stones. The heart beats once more, and the sound fills the space with a sort of mystical enchantment laid over grim desolation not unlike what one would find on a False Mirror album (Derelict World uses this sound style often).
Sounds fade and we are greeted with silence as the world waits with bated breath. Flickering and momentous sounds call out- a hiss there, a knocking on stone from there, a tumbling of rocks disturbed by something no man has seen before. The juxtaposition of the aural silence and noise here works wonders for the emotions of the track, creating one of the most ominous and awesome moments on the entire album. The sky grows darker still as the realms of things other than man fall to rest, and we are left with the stirring rip tide majestic triumph. Barren glory reigns supreme in the Nameless City.
There is a surprising amount of similarity between the various tracks on Maculatum's The Nameless City. Sounds blend together very well and the production quality here is top-notch. No artifacts or other irregularities can ever be heard, and faint whispers can be heard in the background of some tracks, heightening the portentous doom that seems to be approaching. In this way the entire album can be seen as a build up to the final act: the latter half of Part VI is the most ominously majestic piece of ambiance on the album.
The sounds of The Nameless City are mystical and vast- it as if we have discovered something new and compelling to add to the portfolio of human nature, a new type of experience akin to the subtle stab of horror we hear in echoes and dreams half forgotten. Rasalhague and Collapsar have succeeded beyond my wildest expectations, and The Nameless City stands in terrible awe as one of the best examples of dark ambient noise designed to invoke only the most primal of man's emotions. This is fear before anything was ever evil. A solid 4.5 out of 5.
No comments:
Post a Comment