Style: blackgaze, atmospheric black metal, folk black metal, post-metal, new age (mostly clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Alcest, Summoning, Myrkur
Country: Ethiopia
Release date: 5 December 2024

The pseudonym for a shaman whose true name is unpronounceable to humankind, Enat Meret resides in a realm of pure energy where she guides those lost in darkness. Her world pulses with resonant powers, the spiritual and corporeal no longer separated, flowing in streams of liquid light. Here, music is a vitalistic force, as alive as you or I, its energy as awesome as a god’s. She desires to bring her power to Earth so that we once again become one entangled force with our mother planet we have divorced ourselves from before we further effect a cataclysm of Solarian proportion; she is also a vocalist. Cosmic black metal act Nishaiar, dwellers of the Portals of Zenadaz, are her prophet, their music seeking to bridge the two realms. 

How could a band ever live up to the promise of music with the potential to unite mankind and reacquaint our species with our ravaged planet—that their music is from a universe of pure photonic energy? I’ve known that Nishaiar had the potential for a few years; I adore the Ethiopian band’s “terrestrial year 2021” output, Nahaxar, and I think that album—with its characteristic and unique blend of wall-of-sound post-metal, atmospheric black metal, and tribalistic chants and percussion—could conceivably have emanated from some nacreous Shambhala. Nahaxar was at once apocalyptic with its overwhelming climaxes but in the end always kept a sense of hope for the purpose of humanity through its humanistic folk in the wonderful post-crescendo sections. Although Nahaxar didn’t quite reach the limitlessness that the description of Enat Meret promises, I could easily imagine the band evolving to harness her powers fully. At any moment after turning on Enat Meret the first time, I expected a voltaic shock from the otherworldly black metal as Enat Meret’s voice and prophets transformed me in my blindness into a world of new colors divorced from my fleshly confines: it never came.

At odds with the spiritually and musically intense thematics, the sixth album from the Gondar-based group takes a more relaxed approach than does Nahaxar, operating in a style closer to new age-y post-rock than to black metal for much of its hour-long runtime. Not until the third track “Yemelek” does Enat Meret culminate in anything more than unexcitable post-rock, and the stuttering synths and weak, reverb-y female vocals of Lycus Aeternus, Enat Meret, or Lord of Zenadadz (I do not know which of the three members credited with vocals does what) are redolent of Myrkur’s weakest album, Spine. “Yemelek” with its huge wall of black metal, celestial and angelic chanting, and trumpets, however, is immensely satisfying despite the too-long buildup of the first two songs. The latter half of the track features a deluge of percussion like a meteor shower and even a sax solo, which while a little out of place timbrally, is well-composed in context. A few other tracks reach similar blackened highs—“Enat Midir” and “Heyan” notably—and these tracks stand out amid the stream of folky new age and frail shoegaze-y post-metal similar to Alcest’s Les Chants de l’Aurore.

The lack of metal in the rest of the tracklist significantly takes away from the impact of Enat Meret, noticeably the enervated female vocals which only work in juxtaposition with the mostly absent harsh vocals. I would expect and desire Enat Meret’s realm to positively burst with explosive force like Sunyata or Mare Cognitum when translated to Earthly music by her conduit Nishaiar; the plaintive ambient folk is lovely but slightly boring in its placidity. Within these atmospheric tracks, some styles work better than others: for instance, the hypnotic percussion of “Netsa” plays into the band’s Ethiopian origins without being trope-y, but “Alem” is slow and rather bland post-rock. Moreover, Enat Merat is fairly bloated, and if the album were ten tracks rather than fifteen, cutting out several of the filler tracks between the black metal ones, the buildups before the releases would be less tedious. 

Additionally, on Nahaxar, the flow between metal, post-rock, and folk music worked well thematically. Massive swells of black metal heralded calamity with civilization-destroying force; then in the aftermath, post-rock provided a delicate release of tension, a stillness to peacefully contemplate; the folk segments from the cradle of humanity provided a glimpse into a rebuilding, stripped of distortion and, by extension, technology, returned to Earth as it were; finally, the cycle would repeat. Hubris is the way of mankind. Enat Meret, while largely composed of the same basic timbres and genres, is arranged much more haphazardly. I feel no sense of internal logic governing the occasion of switches between genres—they shift, and that’s that. Compared with the breathtaking narrative flow and ambition Nishaiar has achieved before, Enat Meret comes across as a bit rudderless.   

My soul was ready to be led by Enat Meret’s shamanic wisdom—I’d looked forward to a Nahaxar follow-up for three years now—but I don’t feel significantly changed. Perhaps it’s because I’m already environmentally aware and in touch with Earth, rendering me less changed by the shamanic power than Taylor Swift or Elon Musk would be or perhaps it’s because I’m a bigger fan of cosmic black metal than of new age ambient. I still think Nishaiar is a project worth listening to and among the best metal acts Africa has, but I will undoubtedly be returning to Nahaxar instead of Enat Meret for my fix of otherworldly spiritual energy.

Recommended tracks: Yemelek, Mebet Kubet, Netsa, Heyan
You may also like: Eldamar, Violet Cold, Kaatayra, Bríi, Mesarthim, Medenera, Nelecc, Celestial Annihilator
Final verdict: 6.5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Metal-Archives page

Label: independent

Nishaiar is:
– Explorer of the Abyss (bass)
– Arcturian Night (drums)
– Lord of Zenadadz (guitars, vocals)
– Lycus Aeternam (keyboards, vocals)
– Enat Meret (vocals)

The post Review: Nishaiar – Enat Meret appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Neofolk, Tribal Ambient, Neoclassical New Age (Clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Jeremy Soule, Nature and Organisation, literally any of Toby Driver’s projects
Review by: Dave
Country: Connecticut, United States
Release date: 8 August 2024

What do you get when you take a Toby Driver project, strip away the metallic viscera of Kayo Dot, deconstruct the moody Radiohead-meets-post-hardcore sensibilities of Maudlin of the Well, and forego the horrifying imagery of solo work like In the L…L…Library Loft? The end result is Alora Crucible, a Toby Driver project focused less on outwardly intense expression and dedicated to exploring softer orchestral ideas. Debut Thymiamatascension combined new-age sensibilities with touches of post-rock, coming across as the soundtrack to arcane alchemical experimentation akin to tracks like “The Second Operation (Lunar Water)” from Kayo Dot’s Hubardo. Follow-up release Oak Lace Apparition teases the listener with imagery of oaken specters and album art of a looming spherical creature among a gray forest. Does Alora Crucible’s latest exist in a similarly tranquil space as previous output or has the project adopted Driver’s familiar taste for the uncanny?

Oak Lace Apparition eschews the post-rock elements of Thymiamatascension and focuses instead on textured orchestral new-age soundscapes and hypnotic tribal ambient vignettes, manifesting as raw animist neofolk seeking to explore mystical otherworlds nested in the most secluded corners of the forest, featuring the lush impressionist meandering found in Jeremy Soule-style soundtracks combined with the focus on strings present in Musk Ox’s output. An effervescent natural beauty is present across Oak Lace Apparition, accompanied by hints of dissonance created by exceedingly bright chord choices underlying much of the string orchestration. A veritable spectrum of greens are used to paint forest imagery contrasted by stark shadows on “Amongst Ewdendrift a Corridor,” established with a hypnotic plucked motif that is occasionally accented by sharp string instrumentation that is almost overwhelming in its lusciousness; opener “Through the mist, a peak of icy water; where can I find you, pelagian bird?,” gently rocks back and forth between dynamic extremes as moments of woodland serenity are bookended by moments of trees thrashing in unison as unnaturally powerful gusts push over the forest like fingers brushing over high pile carpet; and “Cenote Vacío” sees the listener hunched over a placid river as sparse instrumentation creates a gentle, pillowy backdrop to spoken word poetry.

At times, the oversaturated imagery can be almost too much to take in. Closer “I Destination” is a sixteen-minute piece carried by the discordant wail of bright violins, ebbing and flowing from foreground to background as other motifs and voices overlap in melodious cacophony for brief moments before being swallowed up by the original violin motif, an experience akin to a warm embrace of light beaming from an impossibly beautiful eldritch god, terrifying in its splendor. The gentle chanting of “I destination…” augments this terror further, signaling to the listener that following this light will lead to the end, but the end of what exactly is hard to say: all that is revealed at the end of this piece is a metallic-yet-organic chirping sound that fizzles out, bringing the experience to a cathartic albeit unsettling close as whatever was beckoning to you has finally met you face-to-face.

Therein lies my biggest hurdle when listening to Oak Lace Apparition, and many other Toby Driver projects: it tends to veer too far into these worldly-yet-otherworldly soundscapes, leaving the listener to meander hopelessly around unsettling instrumentation. A core element that draws me so intensely to  dark/neofolk is its ability to foster a deep connection to the natural world, and when Oak Lace Apparition paints the forest as so beautiful that the beauty turns into hostility, the listen becomes uncomfortable and the connection to nature is ruptured, in the process dragging out these unenjoyable ideas over tracks that are, save for one, eight minutes or longer. This is not to detract from the genuinely serene moments, however, as tracks that feature just a touch of dissonance like “Amongst Ewdendrift a Corridor,” “Spindle’s Whorl,” and “Unseen Ending in the Grass Above” are at their core touching and gorgeous, showing a tasteful balance between that which is grounded in reality and that which is unknowable.

Like many Toby Driver projects, I have a complicated relationship with Oak Lace Apparition: I find many moments to be beautiful, too beautiful even, to the point of making my skin crawl. There is a familiar and worldly musical base that is undeniably lush and texturally rich, and at the same time, the entire package is laced in quasi-eldritch dissonance, the end result a hyper-vivid simulacrum of reality that is fundamentally altered from its source material, and that, frankly, freaks me the hell out. If that is an experience that intrigues you, then I urge you to give Oak Lace Apparition a listen, but if you are less comfortable with experiences that feel like your understanding of reality is being pushed, then look to more standard folk output like Ulver‘s Kveldssanger or Musk Ox‘s Woodfall.

Recommended tracks: Amidst Ewdendrift a Corridor, Cenote Vacío, Unseen Ending in the Grass Above, Spindle’s Whorl
You may also like: Geinoh Yamashigurumi, Stephan Micus, Musk Ox
Final verdict: 7/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | RateYourMusic page

Label: House of Mythology – Official Site | Bandcamp | Facebook

Alora Crucible is:
– Toby Driver (vocals, hammered dulcimer)
– Timba Harris (violin)
– Cristina Pérez (piano, synthesizer)

The post Review: Alora Crucible – Oak Lace Apparition appeared first on The Progressive Subway.