VVOV - Pohja

Review by KIZUNAUT

VVOV is a Finnish band that explores the darker-than-black territories lying between darksynth, EBM extreme metal, calling their style “blackened darksynth”. The singular vision behind VVOV is a man going by the name The Vessel, and over the years this vision has grown to incorporate a bassist, a guitarist and a drummer. Time has also seen VVOV shift more towards extreme metal from darksynth while retaining harsh synth sounds associated with the genre. Darksynth has always had a love affair with extreme metal but few have gone as far to that direction as VVOV have gone, eschewing the cyberpunk and horror movie tropes for a more visceral, philosophic, misantrophic type of darkness. 

The very prolific band has since 2018 released four albums, two EPs and a heapful of singles. Besides their gradual stylistic evolution, time has also seen VVOV shift towards the Finnish language in track names and lyrics, a process that began with the 2020 album Marto. While Marto had some content in English, Pohja is all in the band’s native language. The new album’s name has a double meaning, translating to either “The Bottom” or “The North”, both of these meanings extremely fitting for the material found within. 

Thematically Pohja deals with misanthropy, suffering, anti-natalism and nihilism, with a poetic, somewhat archaic flavor that draws from Finnish poetry and literature. At times it gives the album a tone of an overburdened peasant cursing his miserable existence, at times the pain and hate are of more timeless nature. The album’s mixture of timeless agony mixed with cold, mechanical delivery feels like it taps from a dark, archaic undercurrent of Finnish history, a country that has suffered harsh conditions, famines, wars, only to move into industrialization and modernity at accelerated pace without dealing with the chains of generational trauma built over the centuries in any meaningful way. This character of the album probably does not get relayed to the people outside of Finland very well, which is a bit of a shame. Some cultural artifacts are really only possible to fully understand within their own cultural context, and I feel like this is one of such creations. 

What does get relayed to everyone is the utter wrath and power behind the album. The vocal delivery of The Vessel is black metal influenced screeching, the synthetic blast beats hammer the listener with inhuman fury and the mix of synths, guitars, wailing choirs and sheer noise hits with bone-rending force. The production is potent and punchy, if rather treble heavy, a production choice that puts the “blackened” into the “blackened darksynth”. It’s neighborhood-peace-disturbingly loud, while retaining enough air and dynamics for the melancholic and/or menacing choirs and pads that populate many of the album’s tracks. My biggest production critique is that I found it rather heavy on the ears. The extreme loudness and glacial amounts of treble frequencies makes for an tinnitus-inducing experience in the long run. Maybe fans of more black metal oriented material will enjoy this more, or perhaps this is like Jägermeister, best taken in smaller doses. 

Perhaps the somewhat grating nature of the production is a deliberate artistic choice. The album is utterly savage and sounds like it wants to rip your face off, with little concern for the more club-oriented aspects of darksynth. That isn’t to say that the album is just a sheer barrage of noise. There is detail, variation and structure within this hailstorm of an album, and most of the songs have different enough sonic character to stand out from each other. It’s like watching 2000 years of misery play out through a filter of a snowstorm. 

The visual side of the album is spot on for the music found within, featuring a decaying skull at the bottom of the sea, with kelp, swords and human hands to be seen in the background, a rather literal translation of “The Bottom” aspect of the album. The rough, coarse style makes it look like an old woodcut print, emphasizing the more timeless, archaic aspects of the music and effectively communicating the more extreme metal aspect of this album. 

Vaiva starts the album with a shrill, icepick sharp guitar/synth noise and a barrage of blastbeats, setting the tone for what is to come. The Vessel screeches over the barrage of drums and lacerating saw synths about the misery of life while. Passages of what sound like tremolo-picked guitars or tormented synths pop in and out. The song alternates between slower and faster sections, with the choruses slowing things a bit for a while. The latter half of the relatively brief song sees the addition of choirs to the whirling mass of sound and an instrumental section that ends in four drum hits ends the song.

Unta begins with a sequence of rapid, sharp saw-synths and a fast drumbeat, carrying seamlessly into the rapid-fire first verse of the song. The chorus of the song is a bit more melodic than that of the last one, featuring a squirming, distorted indeterminate instrument and mellow pads and a slower beat. Lyrically, one of my favorites from the album: “all of this is a dream, senseless, grotesque, only you exist and you are only a thought”, the lyrics of the chorus go roughly translated. The transition between the last chorus and outro features a rather cool brief guitar countermelody. 

The next song, Rutto, borders on grindcore with it’s extreme speed and short length. VVOV crams a surprising amount of twists and turns into the one minute thirty nine second length of the song, opening with a synth riff reminiscent of hardcore punk, before moving into a different riff and a bit slower beat, only for the song to build into a wall of noise punctured by a brutalizing blastbeat, then moving into a melodic interlude, only for it all to repeat, except instead of an interlude we get a sample of someone coughing before the next track begins. 

Kuivakäymälä has the honor of having the most memorable song name of the album (meaning something to the effect of Dry Outhouse in Finnish). A bit slower, moodier offering, it opens with the familiar blast of drums and harsh saw synths, but soon melancholic choirs join the song and hover over the brutal beats. The first blast of screeched lyrics comes in, and then gives way for a lengthy instrumental section which sees a distorted synth playing melody joining the melancholic choirs. “Human society, a simulacra of civilization, a copy of a copy of a copy, fragile, useless and hollow”, The Vessel declares in Finnish. Another blast of screeched lyrics follows, before another brief interlude that leads to the last repeat of it’s lyrics, the song then dying away in a surprisingly gentle piano melody. One of my favorites from the album for it’s sound and lyrics. 

An extremely heavily effected scream that sounds like it’s rising from the bowels of hell opens up Mietteitä, a lyric-less interlude that really pushes the rapid-fire saw synths that are the band’s trademark sound to the forefront. Alternating between several different riffs and featuring a middle section with a neat synth arp pattern, the song is a cool slice of mostly instrumental synth-metal, featuring intermittent distant growls and screams. 

Rotat begins with a bizarre rattling noise before moving to a cool, chugging section that features a pretty catch riff backed up by atmospheric synths. The verses have a more march-like beat and extra visceral vocal performance from The Vessel. The second chorus features an extra synth lead and leads into a fast interlude, with the same synth playing another melody, before joining in as another doubling instrument for the last repeat of the chorus. A brief passage of plucky square synths serves as the outro. Another favorite from the album. 

Fateful organ pads herald the coming of Messias, another instrumental cut from the album. . A barrage of blast beats and spoken word samples advocating for voluntary extinction push the track into motion. If Mietteitä was very clearly drawing from metal, Messias is a bit more electronic influenced with it’s synth leads and choir pads. These sections alternate with more chaotic sections that draw more from extreme metal, featuring rolling blastbeats and chaotic, roiling synthlines. 

Synty slows things a bit, opening with a churning riff with a synth lead dancing over it. The Vessel barks out lyrics about the misery of being born, and the track takes a more somber turn, with melancholic choirs looming in the background. The beat occasionally picks up pace, but the rest of the elements stay in place, giving the track a certain sense of a futile struggle. An interlude comes, picking up the pace a bit, throwing a guitar lead over a chuggy synth riff and rapid blast beats, before a somber piano line leads to a more frantic repeat of the song’s chorus. 

Shrill, menacing leads, dark choirs and a drum roll kick off Sadisti, with a gut-wrenching screech leading to the main body of the track. A very menacing sounding song even among the material of the album, with a mix of rapid saw synths, choir pads and machinegun pace blast beats serving as the meat of the track. The Vessel barks about how humans are filled with hate for each other; “what could kill the evil, what kind of hell would take us in, the earth fills with the human scourge, proof of God’s sadism”. Straightforward, leaning heavily on the extreme metal and it would be right at home as a pure black metal track. 

Tukahduta opens with a medium pace synth line that slowly opens up into one of the more melodic songs from the album while retaining the bone withering aggression displayed on  the rest of the album. A fateful sounding mix of sharp saw basses, synth strings and powerful beats serve as the chorus of the song, with The Vessel screaming what constitute among the more abstract lyrics of the album: “Isolate, anchor, deceive, sublimate, put the pain into words, kill the time, blinded, forget”, they would be, roughly translated. The instrumental verses feature a very cool guitar melody and some neat rhythmic tricks. Structurally, it follows perhaps surprisingly a kind of inverted pop formula, with the chorus coming first, then the verse, then the chorus again, and through an interlude one last repeat of the chorus. The most memorable track of the album for me. 

Reverb-drenched melancholic guitars like shattered glass open Pohja, the titular track and the last song of the album. Synths and beats join the guitars, only for a brief pause to follow, before the track explodes into furious life with a mix of pulverizing blast beats, chugging synth lines and distant choirs and melancholic guitars. The Vessel screams about the inevitability of humanity sinking in the metaphorical bottom. The lyrical expression soon gives way into just sheer screeching, which gives way to an interlude with mournful pads and choirs. Soon enough the track returns to life, and the section with lyrics follows, then the section with screaming, leading into an extended outro which sees new synth leads joining the frantic, roiling tidal wave of a song. One last bout of screamed lyrics leads into an outro featuring melancholic, atmospheric guitars before the song finishes and the album comes to a close.  

Pohja is certainly not an album for everybody, but fans of extreme darksynth and metal will find music they’d enjoy within. The inspirations behind the album give it substance and sincerity that does perhaps not get perfectly translated across cultures, but it makes the album feel that at no point it is just edginess or extremeness for the sake of itself, but rather a powerful statement about the more miserable side of the human condition. 

If nothing else, the album shows that you can elevate your music by taking a hard, honest look at your roots, a lesson that applies to genres far beyond the extreme metal flavored darksynth that VVOV serves us. Overall, VVOV is shaping up to be one of those bands with very unique inspirations and a style that stands out from the rest and one to follow if their style and substance interests you. 

For more VVOV, visit vvov.bandcamp.com

KIZUNAUT

I am Oskari Lappalainen, aka KIZUNAUT, a 32-years old musician and writer for Absynth among other things which include my administrative dayjob. I started Kizunaut in 2017 as a side-project to my back-then two-man band which never really got off the ground. I have been making music since 2008 or so, starting with a solo project, moving to a band that produced a mix of industrial rock and electronica, before moving to another solo project, before moving to another attempt at a band and finally Kizunaut. 

These years included a long hiatus during which I mostly focused on my studies. I graduated from the University of Helsinki in 2017 as a Master of Social Sciences, majoring in sociology, with science and technology studies and computer science as minors. I entered the academic world wanting to understand the world and humanity, and left with a sense that neither of these are truly understandable. Nevertheless, I have retained the curious and analytical attitude that led me to my academic detour. These years also gave me experience in writing, both within the courses and to several student magazines. I have utilized these skills in my later ventures. 

I am a producer and a multi-instrumentalist, playing keyboards, guitar and singing. I picked up the guitar in late 2020. I had tried to learn guitar from 2011 onwards, but never found the time to do so during my studies and had convinced myself that I could not do it. But one can not escape one’s dreams and inspirations forever, and the Covid isolation had proved the perfect opportunity to learn the guitar. Picking up guitar was an extremely revitalizing experience, and I enjoy playing it tremendously and it has brought new blood to old ideas. 

My discography as Kizunaut includes two albums, several singles and the Crisis 2033 EP. This Was The Future (2019) was an album which dealt with dark retrofuturism, hauntology, and a feeling of lost future, a kind of attempt at making sense of the craving for nostalgia which pervaded the cultural atmosphere. The City by the Sea (2020) was about the struggles and joys of modern urban life, an attempt at connecting my emotions of feeling disenchanted with urban life to a larger social sphere.I enjoy making music with some kind of a bigger idea or concept behind it. 

My music as Kizunaut has constantly been moving towards a more rock-oriented style. I started off with pure electronic music as at the time I was really inspired by it and had grown somewhat frustrated with my attempts at making industrial rock with other people. This Was the Future incorporated singing and a style of composition that mimicked synthpop and industrial rock while using synths as stand-ins for guitars. Ever since 2021 I have included guitar in my music. I like to have a solid electronic basis in my music, but I also like to incorporate human elements to it. It keeps it from becoming too sterile and stale. 

Beyond making music, I enjoy videogames, science fiction, anime, delving into the crazy creative vortex of modern net culture, learning, pondering about the mysteries of existence, reading, eating and spending time with my friends. 

My new single Leave Humanity Behind deals with humanity’s dreams of achieving a kind of transcendence through technology, the old dreams of technological singularity. Or perhaps it is technology itself whispering these promises to us? Whatever the case, I find myself critical of such far-fetched dreams so reliant on a force that has proven so unreliable, so impossible to predict, and with such great externalities. 

Technology has destroyed as much as it has given, and it has pushed humanity into an unprecedented dialectical spiral: technology creates problems and then creates new technology to try to solve these problems. This has given humanity never seen before advances in many sectors of life, but also irrevocably altered the global biosphere and human culture. Is it all really worth it? Is more technology upon technology really the answer? 

Musically it’s inspired by synthwave, synthpop and industrial, with an ever so slight hint of shoegaze and modern electronica in its DNA. Spiraling bass arps, echoing piano, shimmering arps and gritty guitars serve as the instrumental backbone. The track features a heavy layering of instruments, building constantly upon itself much like technology constantly builds upon itself in it’s eternal forwards-going spiral. 

The vocals are heavily effected by a mix of a crude autotuning software and extreme distortion: it serves as a sonic counterpart to the lyrical themes of struggling with and doubting technology; a computer program seeking to overpower the human voice. The heavily modulated lead in the chorus also utilizes the same crude autotune software in a way rarely seen. These last creative touches were inspired by Oneotrhix Point Never’s extreme vocal edits. 

As for musical inspirations, in general, I draw from several different strands: the 80s pop and 90s eurodance that populated the airwaves of Finland during my childhood, metal music which I got into during the huge metal boom in Finland during early 00s, the oldschool industrial music I discovered through Laibach, which I discovered through getting into Rammstein and Fear Factory as a teen. 

I am also influenced by synthwave, which I see kind of encapsulating all of these inspirations and also influences from video game music, and other forms of contemporary music. I particularly enjoy music with strong rhythms, a kind of dark passion, good hooks and depth beyond the surface. There’s such great music in almost all genres, from traditional rock to EDM, dubstep and techno, and you can hear splashes of influence from surprising genres in my music.

Individual artists that have served as major inspiration to me include Nine Inch Nails, Depeche Mode, New Order, HEALTH, Perturbator, Dan Terminus, Carpenter Brut, Irving Force, Covenant, Apoptygma Berzerk, Skinny Puppy, Haujobb, Front 242, Front Line Assembly, Haujobb, and Nitzer Ebb. The videogame composer Frank Klepacki deserves a special mention. His soundtracks for Command & Conquer and Red Alert introduced me to music that I would later understand to be influenced by 90s industrial and electronic music. 

As for the future, during 2021 I have been mostly wrapping up various pieces of music from my vault that would fit to be released as singles. I have had various conflicting ideas for future albums, but there have been also a number of tracks that, while I think they are solid, just do not necessarily to fit into a larger whole. Covid has put life into a kind of pause, and I have tried my best to make use of it and releasing singles and building up connections and expanding the potential listener base have seemed like a good way to spend the time. 

More concretely, I have a fun darksynth influenced thing coming in time for Halloween. After that, I have 1-2 more somber, personal pieces coming for the winter, and perhaps a small surprise for the early spring if timetables allow. 

Beyond that, I have reached a solid idea for the next album. It will deal with humanity’s relationship with technology through metaphors of attraction, addiction, love, dependency and craving, treating technology as a kind of a living, breathing thing with an almost occult, invisible, but very real power. I feel like humanity’s relationship with technology has become painfully intimate and very confusing, with it shaping much of our relationships and perceptions in ways that we rarely seem to really reflect upon. 

I think the dry, academic, economic, ways of talking about technology and its impact on society have failed humanity. The way people reacted sarcastically to Black Mirror which made a valiant attempt at shedding light on potential future courses is symptomatic. We are creatures of narrative, belief and myth, of social relations and personal sentiments. It’s one thing to say that computers have become detrimental to our happiness; another to sing that we are in love with the wrong things in life. I hope I can reach not only fresh musical territory but also perhaps find new ways to speak about certain things with the coming album. If nothing else, it will be a valiant, defiant exercise in being human. 

For more KIZUNAUT, visit kizunaut.bandcamp.com

CODE ELEKTRO - Live At The Radar Station

Review by KIZUNAUT

CODE ELEKTRO is the synthwave project of Martin Ahm from Denmark. From 2015 onwards he has managed to build a global fanbase as well as reach critical acclaim within his home country. Stylistically, Code Elektro has leaned on the more soundtrack-inspired side of synthwave, citing the soundtracks of movies such as Blade Runner and TRON: Legacy as an inspiration. Describing his music as “Dystopian science fiction atmospheres, neon Skylines and eternal cyberpunk nights with acid rain,” Code Elektro does indeed deliver in science fiction ambience. His albums seem to have certain theming to them: 2019’s Never Mind the Solar Wind had a decidedly space-oriented sci-fi sound to it, while 2017’s Triad had a kind of asian flavor to it. 

As one can surmise from the title, Live at the Radar Station is however a live album, a rarity in the synthwave genre. Gigs in themselves are a rarity in the era of Covid lockdowns, so this album is a rare creature indeed. For the performance Martin put together a live band, with a guitarist and a drummer joining him onstage. The performance was recorded in Radar, a venue in Aarhus, Denmark, giving the album its name. 

Performing and recording live music is wholly an art of its own, and the team involved with this effort has succeeded well in both. The tracks are mostly quite faithful to their album counterparts and represent Code Elektro’s four-album catalogue rather evenly. The biggest difference probably lies in the addition of guitar to tracks that didn’t have it before, sometimes playing leads or more drawn-out atmospheric passages, sometimes serving in the rhythm role. The drummer brings his own human touch and adds little flourishes to the songs. All musicians involved appear to be quite the seasoned pros at performing. 

The recording side of things is executed with stellar success. I can only speculate whether this was recorded from the mixer or from the hall or perhaps both, but the occasional audience noises hint at their being at least some hall recording mixed in. Whatever the case, it sounds great. The largest difference production-wise between these live recording and the album versions is mostly that there seems to be a bit more “air” in the tracks, perhaps headroom, perhaps ambient reverb from the venue in them, but I find it actually quite fitting for Code Elektro’s soundtrack-ish style. 

On the visual side of things, the album cover recycles the cool, kind of biomechanical dragon head design from the Triads album. While it’s a nice design, I feel like the album would have benefited from a visual identity of its own. I was also surprised to see that only one song from the performance has a video of it uploaded as of writing this review. Perhaps there is more coming, but if not, then it feels like a bit of a wasted opportunity. 

The album begins with the ethereal pads and throbbing bass lines of Wolf, an apparent fan favorite from Code Elektro. A groovy hi-hat pattern comes, the bass lines modulates into a gnarly, throaty sound, and a brief silence leads to the main body of the track, with a vocal-like lead synth casting a melody that feels like a call to an adventure. The track strips itself down, offering a variation of the main lead before moving into a buildup towards a pretty sweet guitar solo. After the solo finishes, the track moves into a section dominated by the lead melody, leading into a brief outro with guitar taking the lead role once again. A great opener and one of my favorites from the set. 

N3on begins with a curious-sounding, sharp synth sequence. The synth sequence slides into the background as the song opens up, with deep synth bass, distorted rhythm guitar and thin square synth melodies serving as the backbone. There is a somewhat melancholic, fateful sound to it all, the melancholia strengthened by the moderate tempo of the song. A brief interlude featuring remote synth strings and stabs of synthetic piano leads to the main body of the track repeating, this time with an extra synth lead that evolves into a wildly squirming, heavily modulated beast. Another interlude comes in, featuring a steady bass arp and distant choir synths before moving into one last repeat of the track’s main part. 

Night Train opens with a slow, steady, heavy bass arp and high-pitched shifting modulated synth melody. They are soon joined by staccato rhythm guitar and a sharp arp. Drums come in while the lead keeps on playing and the track slowly layers atmospheric elements on top of the synths, drums and guitars. An interlude featuring a synth that recalls a hybrid of an electric piano and an organ comes in, other elements giving way for this brief passage before the lead and other elements come in again. Taken from the Triads album, it shares the vaguely asian atmosphere of the album. 

A sharp bass arp kicks off Never Mind the Solar Wind. A filter sweep leads to the main body of the track, and the arp is joined by rhythm guitar and drums. Hollow synth melodies, needle-sharp synth staccatos, airy choir pads and heavily modulated samples talking about an “expedition” color the track. Towards the end there is a section with a heavily modulated synth lead. The track has a very sci-fi, kind of mysterious sound to it all. 

Gnarly, swooshing synths, rhythm guitars, a toothy PWM bass line and a drum buildup kick off Driving On the Moon. The track is quite atmospheric, and relatively sparse, with low-key synth leads and occasional passes of very resonant synth stabs. An otherworldly interlude with distant voice samples leads into the main body of the track repeating again, this time with extra synth leads, including a whistling, almost theremin-like lead. It shares the spacey vibe of the previous track. 

The live set explores further space themes with Cosmonaut’s Dream, which opens with deep synth basses, a melodic arp and a drum beat. Slow waves of distorted guitars and an almost organ-like, flanged synth lead give the track character. The track has a chorus with a very beautiful, resolute melody featuring a piano-like instrument as an extra element. A sparser section with a kind of hollow sounding synth and filter-sweeping passes of synth bass follows, before the main body of the track repeats, this time with some alterations to the melody.  The chorus repeats, in extended form, slowly stripping itself down. One of my favorites from the set.

From Cosmonaut’s Dream we move to Cyber Dreams, which quickly builds itself into a satisfying mix of bouncing bass lines, resonant synth sweeps and choir-like and saw-synth leads taking turns casting atmosphere. Judging by the sound of it, these cyber dreams have their sinister side. There’s a drum solo over a low bass drone at the halfway point, leading to the main body of the track repeating, this time with alterations to the synth melodies. 

Digitron opens with a low, modulating bass arp and almost distorted-sounding passes of synth melody. Heavier synth stabs backed by guitar come, as does a slow, intermittent bass line. Bell-like synths twinkle in the background and theremin-like synth wails come in. A stripped-down interlude featuring bell-like twinkles and a gnarly-synth sequence that has loomed in the background comes in. The main body repeats, leading to another interlude, and the main body repeating once more before the track ends. 

A hollow synth pad and a flanging synth sequence serve as the intro buildup to Propulsion Drive. The track kicks into life, featuring staccato rhythm guitar, a deep bass line and splashes of sharp, remote synth lead. An ascending-descending lead comes in, building towards an interlude featuring cosmic swooshes and remote voice samples. The main body of the track repeats, this time with a brief pause where other instruments give way to the bass, before the ascending-descending synth pattern comes in again, this time with some extra flourishes. There’s a sense of motion fitting the name in this track. 

Binary Prophecy begins with crystalline synth sweeps and swirls of percussion and arps. An unusual, distorted lead synth comes in and leads the track to a section dominated by a low PWM bass line that turns into an extended buildup. Guitars, arps, swirling percs come slowly in. The crystalline swirling synths come back in, joined by modulated, high-pitched synth leads. The bass grows in intensity, opening up. Further leads come in and the track crescendos in a swirling mass of synths before ending, and ending the album with it. 

Overall, the album is a fantastic treat for longtime fans of Code Elektro and a good introduction to his work for those who have not yet heard of it. Code Elektro’s slower, more atmospheric, soundtrack-influenced style may not be for everyone, but those who enjoy a good fix of sci-fi ambience will enjoy this album and further journeys into Code Elektro’s discography. Judging by this album, Code Elektro has translated their sound into live environment with success, and I for one will gladly go see them play live if I ever get the chance. 

For more Code Elektro, visit codelektro.com

LORDNIKON - Undercrypt

Written by KIZUNAUT

Undercrypt is the third full-length album from the self-declared Bay Area midtempo king, LordNikon. His previous works include Castle Blackheart (2018) in which he demonstrated a collection of competent darksynth tracks and Kvlt (2020) which saw him diversify his style by incorporating more varied song structures and atmospheric and cinematic elements. Undercrypt sees LordNikon moving further into soundtrack-inspired territory, this time with a more hypnotic vibe. 

The album draws  influence from various film soundtracks, including Creepshow, Beyond the Black Rainbow, Midsommar and Mandy. The album does convey its influences effectively while retaining an identity of its own. It is indeed more Ari Aster and less 80s slasher in its vibe, with mysterious, witchy arps and synth atmospherics casting hard to pin down sinister, esoteric moods.

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There is a certain emotional space that LordNikon was aiming for when making the album. He describes it as "swimming in a pool at night...just drifting...in my head it feels like an ever-shifting color palette of blues and reds, greens going into pastel pinks and yellows that drift into a sea of black, like some kind of oil painting that never gets finished and never dries because there’s too many layers built up."

While music and how it is perceived is of course subjective, even before I heard of his aims and inspirations I felt the album to be quite oceanic, with the same light-dissolving-into-darkness feeling as the Beyond the Black Rainbow soundtrack has. For me, it was perhaps more of lights at the bottom of a dark ocean than a pool and an oil painting, but I feel like LordNikon has nevertheless effectively communicated a very particular aesthetic with this album.

While the cover art isn’t an oil painting that never gets finished, it manages to project an uncanny aura that fits the album quite well. There is simultaneously something very familiar about the fireplace and the painting, yet something off. Perhaps it’s the saturated colors, perhaps the way the fireplace is filled with candles and lamps, items that shouldn’t be there. It’s not hard to read it as some kind of stygian portal in the context of the album. 

For music that is ostensibly rooted in darksynth, the album has actually a quite airy and subtle overall production that fits the more soundtrack-oriented style very well. There is patience and restraint within the tracks and often the traditional darksynth elements, the hard, dark bassliness, synth growls and sinister leads, more stalk than assault the listener. That isn’t to say that the album wouldn’t have it’s more in-your-face moments, and when they come in, they hit all the more harder. I highly recommend headphones for this album. The production is mostly very fitting and well done and a major step-up from the previous albums. 

The album opens with the ultra-ominous Blood Tithe, a tense, swirling mass of orchestral instruments that is joined by a low, crunchy synthetic bassline. The mesmerizing, interplaying glissandos of sharp strings give the track an almost Shepard tone-like characteristic. It seems to build up, tense up, run away constantly, the instruments reaching for octaves they can never quite reach. After a brief pause drums join in, but the tension remains unresolved. A very unique and effective opener. 

Draped In Soot begins with metallic, echoing bass synths and a mysterious arpeggio that are soon joined by drums and synth strings. The relatively slow-paced track lurks along, building up and stripping out elements along the way. An organ-like arpeggio and faster hi-hats come in, giving the track extra momentum. The organ arpeggio fades away, and the track races towards its ending which features a cool, sinister synth melody. 

Soft synth arps and low, ultra-resonant droning synths open the next track, Sun Pit. A slow beat thuds alongside with splashes of guttural synths before a bass arp comes in and the track kicks into motion. A heavily crushed synthline comes to back up the bassline and then gives way to a mix of melodic synths. There is a kind of Egyptian flavor to it all. A brief interlude featuring sounds of birds singing in the distance serves as a bridge to the second half of the track that features a more open, slower sound, with low strings serving as the backbone. The beat plows over the strings, and a sharp synth sketches out a melody. The variation of the synth arp from the latter half of the first section comes in and the track slowly moves to completion. 

Zero is a short interlude, featuring a descending melody of warm synth brass, low synths strings and a sound that reminds me of a distorted heartbeat. Glassy ambient synths come to loom in the background on the latter half of the track.Soon, only the repeating cascade of synth brass remains. A snippet of a soundtrack in search of a movie. 

Collared opens with distant, choir-like synths before moving into a pattern dominated by thudding drums, a constant synth bass arp and occasional hits of squelchy, bitcrushed synths. The atmospherics from the intro haunt the background, occasional rattling noises and brief string passages drift in and out. A synth arp comes in, leading to a section with a secondary low synth melody interplaying with the basslines. A lead with a hollow tone paints a melancholic yet mysterious atmosphere for a while before turning into an arpeggio pattern that leads the song to its conclusion. 

A series of witchy, heavily reverbed crystalline synths opens The Queen and the Sea. This pattern is soon joined by a heavy beat and an ultra-low synth bass sequence. A ticking synth sequence looms in the background, synth bass growls fade in and out of the stereo field and remote, hollow, vaguely choir-like synths sketch out a mysterious atmosphere. A synth sweep leads to an interlude with interesting, almost reversed-sounding synths, the distant atmospherics soon showing themselves more clearly. The beat and bassline come back and the bass growls become more prominent. A cool, bending, sharp lead sweeps in. The song arrives at its outro, the cool lead replaced by the witchy synths from the intro until only the reversed arp and distant choirs remain. 

King opens with a very heavy pulse-width modulated synth bass arp that is soon joined by sparse, moaning hits of sharp, pitchbending synths. A hard beat pours in, the track rolls over like a black flood of darksynth basses, ominous passes of sharp synths and occasional splashes of bright, crystalline synths. Absolute crypt music. A brief interlude featuring a sharp string riser and a beat building in intensity leads into the latter half of the track which features a more uptempo synth arp that gives the track a surge of energy. Skittering hihats hurry along, juicy synth sweeps and a floating mass of atmospheric instruments give the track atmosphere. A big personal favorite from the album. 

We Are Drowning opens with a tortured, creaking, granularized piano hit, it’s tortured remains looping over and over. Skittery string pizzicatos join, as does a sharp square arp. A brief buildup leads into the main body of the track, featuring a steady beat and an ultra low resonant, bitcrushed bassline alongside with the elements introduced at the intro. A higher pitched bitcrushed synthline comes in, partnering up with a warm, resonant synth that paints an ominous atmosphere. A sharper arpeggio and a shrill, bending synth string come in soon after. The track then sheds some of its elements, leaving the beat, the crunchy bassline and an assortment of atmospherics to play along. Eventually only the looping, granularized remains of the piano from the intro remain, and the track ends with a pitch-shifted, barely recognizable audio sample of a call from a clinic on how they are doing “everything they can do to protect the community”. The distorted call fades away, and thus ends the album.  

LordNikon set out to do music with a very peculiar aesthetic on this album, and he has succeeded well in it. At 32 minutes in length, the album does not overstay its welcome, but it neither feels really too short. One or two tracks perhaps wouldn’t have fitted in, but as a whole, the album feels very coherent and complete.

The strong commitment to a particular aesthetic, the coherence and the soundtrack-like quality of it all however also make the album rather homogenous, with King being the most stand-out track. While all the tracks have things which set them apart from each other, they all operate within a quite similar tempo range and utilize somewhat similar motifs. The album is less varied than the previous one, and whether this is a weakness or a strength is a matter of perspective. For me, the album turned out to be a wonderful fix of heat-wilted, post-midsummer fix of occultism, but those hoping to find a varied listening experience or club bangers might walk away disappointed. 

If nothing else, the album has proved LordNikon to be an artist willing to evolve and improve his sound and who can communicate a very particular, fresh, yet still dark and esoteric vibe with his music. Undercrypt is well worth checking out for fans of dark soundtrack-inspired music and people who want to hear a bit more atmospheric take on darksynth. 

For more LordNikon, visit lordnikonsynth.bandcamp.com