Black Seas of Infinity / Kaniba / Ugegi Aoiveae A Ser-
The Trinity of Non-Being
2
Synopsis:
Here is a purely ambient three-way split release that will confound and annoy most metal heads that come here looking for well… metal.
Review:
I’m rarely at a loss for words when it comes to reviews and will generally tackle any genre with a modicum of objectivity, but truth be told, I really regret signing up for this one.
This three-way split consists of three bands that utilize nothing but programming and ambience to purvey their sonic musings. This stuff actually makes the Cold Meat Industry’s stuff sound veritably ‘metal’ as all three droning, heaving, noise-mongers leave me wondering what actually constitutes music nowadays.
First, Utah’s former black metal one-man project (gasp) Black Seas of Infinity deliver three relatively short bursts of undulating, ominous noise that come across as having a conversation with someone in a wind tunnel while a demented orchestra plays in the background (particularly “The Faceless Ones Shall Be Kings Of The Earth Forever”). The tracks play like all of Leviathan’s or Axis of Perdition’s ambient musings fused together without the black metal sidebar. It’s all very creepy, but if you a relatively stable (or non drug using) individual, its mindless droning and humming that sounds when I shut my wife out during a long conversation.
The two tracks offered up by Kaniba are a bit more aquatic and ritualistic in their offerings with stark windy FX layered over creaking, straining wood with an eventual distorted peak (“When the Hurricane Comes”) and deep woodwinds over more marine sounding ebbs and flows (“When I Forsook All Earthly Wisdom”). Again though, Kaniba does nothing more than put me to sleep, not take me away to some ancient Chthonic plane.
The lengthy sole track from Ugegi Aoiveae A Ser lives up to the band’s esoteric name with basically what amounts to one 16-minute drone with a few orchestral tinkles sprinkled on the end. Wow, I’m in another world and on another subconscious plane of existential horror. Oh no I’m not, I fell asleep.
While I respect artistic integrity, creativity and the desire to carry the listener away to some hallucinatory nether world, I personally can’t fathom paying good money for this when I could go stand in a forest, by an airport, in a subway at night or next to an Air conditioning unit and get the same effect.
I’m going to record me starting my car and release it as a split with my neighbor mowing his yard and my wife using the garbage disposal. It's art I tell you!
