Limited to 400 regular CDs and 100 special editions. Numbered copies.
Three years after loving or being disgusted by pussy Vardan is back in full force with some tasty black metal tunes with fellow black metal oddity and walking hybrid of a badger and a man, Sin-Nanna to create a refreshing, strange, and actually really atmospheric black metal split. So, what happens when you combine some dreary depressive post-metal/black metal with minimalist twenty plus minute Australian dirges? For starters you have a lot of music, and also some interesting, if slightly repetitive takes on our most favorite music. I'm not too good at reviewing splits so let's just divide it up, yeah?
Vardan: ok, this was actually really surprising. For Vardan's two offerings we get full, glorious slabs of post-metal with black metal shrieks. It's not post-black or any of that, it's straight up Jesu worship. It's not as dynamic and perfect as Jesu, but it's still really good. Moments of quiet clean guitars sweep gently into the heavier moments that pound the listener with hypnotic riffs over the course of a glorious and minimalist twenty minutes. It's not technically difficult to compose music like this, but it does take an ear to add the low synths gently humming in the background on "The End of Spiritism Obsession II" before bringing the tremolo and shrieks back. Similarly, it takes a keen ear to place the major chord riffs and juxtapose them with swirling tremolo riffs highlighting the less peaceful moments on "The End of Spiritism Obsession I". Both of these songs are well composed, excellently accented, and show a marginal improvement in song-writing that Vardan only hinted at in his debut. It basically takes the last minute of "To Lick a Dripping Pussy" (I'm going to work that into every review, don't you worry) and extends it over twenty minutes. A bit sloppy at times, but the harmonies and chorus moments found on both songs are well worth checking out. Striborg: the first thing you'll notice is the jarring difference in production. From Vardan's clean, ethereal production that ends with weeping harmonies comes Striborg's thumping anti-music production. Thick lumbering anti-riffs are played while drums plod along in the background as menacing clean guitars strike the same four chords over and over. Sin-Nanna's vocals are front and centered and heavily distorted, so his trademark raspy shrieks are replaced by a muddy beast that sounds like Wrest never took his hand off of the gain dial when recording early Leviathan. For reference point, the juxtaposition would be like listening to a split between Katatonia and Xasthur, not entirely unfitting (considering the latter did a cover of the former's) but you would go from a weeping doom-y goth environment to a cavernous, buried one. It's not unpleasant, but it's something that makes the first listen a little difficult.
So, on this one, in addition to his vocal style, Sin-Nanna seems to have abandoned a few other trademark sounds - the humid rain-like guitars are replaced by these hissing machines that just sort of churn out mid-paced riff after mid-paced riff with the occasional awesome bit. The bass is entirely buried, and drums are a machine. However, all his weirdness seems to have stayed in full force, which is always welcome with this dude. About a third into the song, the listener is met with this synth that sounds straight out of The Thing and an utterly bizarre guitar riff that just plays the same minor chord over and over again with no discernable pattern. Sometimes it comes in on one synth note, sometimes on another - the effect, whether intentional or not, actually does give the song a unique experience. But, with Striborg, it's always hard to tell when the thing is intentional or not. The only real bummer about this part is that Sin-Nanna decided to kick back into speedy mode (which for Striborg is either slow mid-paced or blasting way too fucking fast for the guitar speed). It's the former in this case, which is sloppy and bizarre and floats around in a weird, but not evil manner - in other words it's a classic Striborg twist. However, given the nature of the split, it would seem better to keep that earthy cemetery sound earlier. Weird, but not great weird.
All in all - a cool split with cools bands for people who just like weird shit mixed in with some talent. Vardan absolutely crushes this split, and while Striborg isn't nearly as bizarre and memorable as he normally is, it's still worth the listen - if anything for the juxtaposition.
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