AN NCS PREMIERE: SUSPIRAL — “CROWN OF CHAOS”

 Premieres  4 Responses »
Apr 152019
 

 

Two main impulses drive the music of Suspiral, and as you read what they are, they might seem incompatible.

On the one hand, they embrace chaos, unleashing terrific storms of gale-force intensity, with waves of blackened death metal slaughtering geared toward mind-rending impact. On the other, they draw influence from Kraut and drone bands such as Ash Ra Temple and Faust in a manner designed to induce trance-like immersion and the gradual accretion of aberrant psychoactive effects, reshaping the mind rather than obliterating it.

These strategies might seem incompatible, but Suspiral manage to unify them, and the experience is perhaps most stunning when they accomplish both things at the same time — as they do on the song we’re premiering today.

The track you’ll be able to stream below is “Crown of Chaos“, which opens their new album Chasm — set for release on May 10th by Sentient Ruin Laboratories in the U.S. and by Clavis Secretorvm in Europe. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SUSPIRAL — “POISONOUS ESSENCE”

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Jan 072016
 

Suspiral-Delve Into the Mysteries of Transcendence

 

You are about to have a mind-altering experience. It will last almost 13 minutes. In that time, you may feel as if Suspiral have torn apart the membranes that separate our mundane world from dimensions both terrifying and mystical, disorienting and transcendental. It’s a masterful piece of very dark music. Its name is “Poisonous Essence”.

The song is the first of three long tracks that make up the debut album of this Spanish band. It bears the fitting title Delve Into The Mysteries Of Transcendence, and it will be released by I, Voidhanger Records on March 1, 2016.

Many listeners, including myself, approach songs of this length with a certain wariness. You wonder if the time is necessary to accomplish the band’s goal, and whether the time will be well-spent or instead prove to be an exercise in self-indulgence. In this case, the music is so immersive, so richly textured, and so well-constructed that you forget the passing of the minutes. You enter a kind of dream state — but one that’s far from tranquil. Continue reading »