AN NCS PREMIERE: SKYLESS AEONS — “DIMENSIONAL ENTRAPMENT”

 

We’re told that the origins of Skyless Aeons can be traced to “an errant bus ride” in London (Ontario, not England) around 2014 during which drummer Martin Burchill and guitarist Nicholas Luck met up for the first time. It will probably be a while before close encounters on a bus plant the seeds for bands again, but in those less infectious times this one did. And from that meeting, Skyless Aeons grew into a fleshed-out entity following the joinder of vocalist Nathan Ferreira and bassist Steve Oliva.

Those four released a debut EP named The Era of Famine in 2016, but it’s fair to say that the band were still searching for their identity then, using death metal as the backbone of their sound. However, their debut album Drain the Sun, which will be out on October 2nd, is a more distinctive and arresting reflection of the band’s interests. The care devoted through two years of songwriting shows, and the results are both intriguing and very impressive — as you’ll see when you listen to our premiere of an album track called “Dimensional Entrapment“.

 

Photo Credit: Skye Camara

 

Considering the album as a whole, the band explain:

“Our inspiration comes from the faults in the human condition we encounter in our everyday lives: greed, over-consumption, over-population, the failure to recognize our dogmatic beliefs are wrong leading to division. The music serves as a warning call to what will happen if we fail to recognize the error of our ways, some of which we already see happening in civil unrest.”

As for “Dimensional Entrapment” standing alone, this excerpt from the lyrics provides some insights:

dimensional entrapment
limbs bound by the unseen paralyzed by finitude
knowledge restrains us from divinity
We have a wish: to drain the stars
to become more than we are

Musically, the song could be thought of as a blending of melodic death and black metal with some pronounced progressive tendencies. It will keep you a bit off-balance, but that’s part of what makes it enthralling to behold, and there’s an engaging darkness at its core as well — a darkness that takes different shapes.

Slightly discordant notes and thrumming bass tones create an immediate sense of uneasy musing. The unease blossoms into torment through broiling riffage, tumbling percussion, and guttural growls. The slithering, vibrato guitars reach shrieking apexes, but also diminish into menacing, mutated, burbling tones — and surge into rapidly jabbing assaults. The song continues to ebb and flow, eerie and haunting in one moment and absolutely insane in the next, as the guitar flurries reach plateaus of feverish mayhem and the vocals flare into throat-slaughtering shrieks. A mercurial guitar solo is initially enchanting but proves to be crazed as well — and the song ends in one last episode of uneasy reflection.

 

Today’s premiere is the second song to be revealed from the album so far, following the premiere at Ghost Cult Mag of “Go Forth and Multiply” — “a short, sweet punch to the gut that came together in a fit of inspiration”. We’re including a stream of that one too.

Drain the Sun was produced, mixed, and Engineered by Michael Marucci and assistant engineer Eric Altomonte at The Watershed & Sonic Zen Studios, and was mastered by Nathan Boots at Visceral Sound. The instantly recognizable artwork of Sam Nelson (Stigma Art) adorns the cover.

The album is recommended for fans of Opeth, Dark Tranquillity, Death, and Swallow the Sun.

PRE-ORDER:
https://skylessaeons.bandcamp.com/releases

SKYLESS AEON:
https://www.facebook.com/SkylessAeons