(Andy Synn continues to enjoy the blooming of Æthĕrĭa Conscĭentĭa‘s sound on their new album)
If there’s one thing I can say about NCS, it’s that we are loyal to the bands we choose to cover (sometimes to a fault) and… wait, that’s how I started my last review for this band.
Let’s try this again.
If there’s one thing we love here at NCS it’s discovering new, underground bands and then following them as they grow and change and evolve over the years.
And considering this is the third time I’m going to be writing about French Progronauts Æthĕrĭa Conscĭentĭa I think it’s safe to say that we’re in this for the long haul.
So let’s see what strange delights they have for us this time, shall we?
Right away, as the sublime melodies, sci-fi synths, and spacey saxophonics of opener “Astral Choir” make themselves known, it should be clear that – like their peers in Maladie, Solefald, and Dødheimsgard before them – Æthĕrĭa Conscĭentĭa have long-since moved beyond the creative confines of the term “Black Metal”.
That’s not to say they’ve totally abandoned their roots (the aforementioned “Astral Choir”, for example, is laced with passages of bombastic riffage and blistering drum work reminiscent of White Ward at their best, while the blast-driven “Wrath Of The Virikoï” is five furious minutes of psychedelia-infused blackened psychosis) it’s more that while Black Metal may form the canvas upon which the band are painting, their palette has expanded to include colours and shades from across the spectrum.
Take the gleaming Prog and Post-Rock soundscapes of “Haesperadh”, for example – whose catchy, off-kilter rhythms and unorthodox melodies weave and and twine themselves around a cathartic core of rapid, rippling drums and dark, doomy chords – or the simmering, Sunnata-esque slow-burn grooves and shimmering soundscapes of “Endless Cycle”, both of which find the band refusing to be confined, or defined, by a term as limited as “Black Metal” even as they continue to build upon it as the foundation of their sound.
I’ll grant you that there’s a sense that things haven’t quite finished, ahem, blossoming as of yet – the production in particular sometimes feels like it hasn’t quite found the right balance between heavy and hallucinogenic – but the promise and potential of songs such as “Daimu Kadasdra Ko Antall” (which largely abandons the more metallic side of the group’s identity in favour of an altogether more kaleidoscopic conglomeration of mind-expanding melodies) and the climactic title-track (whose deliciously dark, noir-ish overtones add a broodingly intense vibe to the band’s powerful, post-genre brand of esoteric extremity) simply cannot be denied.
Both a brand-new beginning and the culmination of long years of evolution, The Blossoming successfully plants the seeds for Æthĕrĭa Conscĭentĭa to grow into something even stranger and more singular… and I can’t wait to watch them bloom!