Turia "Dor" CD Digipack

CD version released in 4 panel digipak. Limited to 500 copies.

Turia was started in the winter of 2014. The band aims to evoke gripping black metal, stripped to its bare necessities. Utilizing a minimal setup of drums and guitar they bring to life a mirage of sound while anguished screams drag the listener into a vastness of desolation.

If minimalist trance-like flowing black metal immersion is your brimming cup of soma, Dutch band Turia have something to intoxicate you and keep you submerged in dark atmospheric BM psychedelia with debut release "Dor". The band's name is derived from Hindu philosophy and refers to the fourth and highest level of consciousness in which the individual soul is rid of all preoccupations and attachments, and achieves Unity with the universal consciousness. To reach this stage, the individual journeys from the conscious state through other levels of consciousness / unconsciousness and the project's intention may be to provide the soundtrack that aids and guides the questing soul into the levels that take it to its ultimate goal.

"Dor" is divided into four tracks which may or may not represent the different stages needed for the soul's voyage into deeper consciousness. In each piece, continuous streams of hard-hitting percussion and quivering buzzy tremolo guitars create layers of bristling texture moving you relentlessly towards your ultimate goal. Screaming banshee vocals in the far background accompany you on your quest. Within the fast-moving maelstrom of hypnotic rhythms and beats, melodies and riffs rise and fall one after the other in a never-ending parade of sound flotsam and jetsam. Changes in key help push the music along and along with variations in rhythm and melody ensure your attention never wanders very far away. The first two tracks "Behoudenis" and "Ascese" are similar in speed and mood and it's only with "Zuiderheid" that there's a change in the mood and the style of music to something more familiarly black metal (with a touch of stately doom) and conventional in the track's song-like structures. The riffs have more definition and seem less likely to melt back into amorphous bristly tremolo guitar lava streams. The only thing missing might be some actual rasping vocals delivering lyrics of rage against humanity, Satanic worship and contemplation of the human condition. In spite of the lack of lyrics that might add more meaning and some depth to the song, "Zuiderheid" is a complex beast of many (mostly dark and depressive) moods and emotions, a sinister and malevolent ambience, and plenty of hooks and rhythms to claw listeners into its unyielding embrace. Turia earn plenty of brownie points by managing a balance between all-out immersive hypnotic tremolo atmospheric BM and a more pop-oriented outlook by including enough melody and rhythm structures to keep listeners enthralled. My only major complaint is that breaks between tracks have the potential to disrupt listeners' dreams and trance states and to lose some momentum and energy that should zing straight from one track to the next without pause and build up emotion all the while. The band's sound is very good though it could actually benefit from being even more distorted and to bristle with demonic energy that threatens to take listeners to a world that exists in parallel with, and is opposite to, the world of unity with the collective consciousness: a world where souls are annihilated completely. On the whole this is quite enjoyable and restrained hypnotic trance BM pop-metal that would satisfy most people. On future releases, I'd like to see (hear? feel?) a more deranged and desperate band grabbing every opportunity to ride the music to its extremes.

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