Rating: 7.8

Country: Russia

Genre: Esoteric Ambient/ Funeral Doom

Record Label: BadMoodMan

Release Date: 2008

Track list:
1. Induality, Not Induality
2. In the Insane Dance of Stars
3. Kense
4. New Aeon

Band Website: Opaque Lucidity

Opaque Lucidity - Self Titled


Anton - composer
Evgeniy - Russian lyrics vocalist
Nikita - guitars
Artem - English lyrics vocalist

Their label describes Opaque Lucidity's self-titled debut as "esoteric ambient/funeral doom." Of those two genres I am only familiar with the latter. Not intimately familiar, but enough to know that OL is definitely not what I would normally consider funeral doom, at least in the sense of Catacombs, Esoteric, Skepticism or Ahab.

No, this is funeral doom without the doom and extremely dark esoteric ambient. Which means heavy, drifting ambient compositions far closer in tone and sound to Troum or Encomiast than Beyond Black Void or Until Death Overtakes Me. If it wasn't for the low doom death growls this would have nothing in common with funeral doom, or heavy metal really, at all, even in the most abstracted sense. Despite the lack of overt or even sublime doom, I like this and find it a relatively enjoyable listen. That complete lack of "metal" might make this a tough sell to most metal fans. Because while this album is heavy, it's a heaviness not derived from tuning down or slowing down, instead the heaviness comes from emptiness and negative space in the compositions, the tones and notes given weight by time and length. Dark ambient is usually a love it or hate it proposition for most people, and OL is no different. There is nothing accessible about this four song release (especially since all the writing is in Russian!), just long, sustained tones and the occasional deathly growl: music for the easily bored this is definitely not.

And there really isn't much more I can say about OL's self-titled.  If you're familiar with, and enjoy as I do, the works of Troum, Tim Hecker, Aidan Baker you'll probably really like this album. If you get this expecting something like Torture Wheel, Fall of the Grey-Winged One or Sunn, you're likely to be quite disappointed.

July 31, 2009