This is the third Unsub album of the collaboration between graphics designer and guitar player Kevin Fetus and the man behind the Love Earth Music label, Steve Davis, a.k.a. +DOG+. How this collab came to be and some background on the howz and whatz, I’ll skip this time, and I’ll gladly refer you to the previous episodes, being 1458 & 1473. Because there are other things I want to talk about.
First, the artwork. Very well done and entirely in sync with the previous two albums. In the first album, it was overtones of quite massive black parts, in sync with the post-rock parts of the music. The second album had a more open feeling, and the colour scheme used underlined the open character. This album is mostly grey tones and has images of monstrosities straight from a Jackson movie. The one on the inside could have been a zombified Orc army, so creepiness on top of creepiness. We’ll find out if it fits the sounds in a bit, I guess.
The album consists of five tracks in just under an hour. “Ceremony of Failure” is the opening track, a nice dark ambient soundscape that, although not entirely new, is well executed and produced. “Parade of the Infected” gets to me. Ritual rhythms and layers of noise, this is the track that fits the previously described description of an army of zombified Orcs. The third track is the shortest one and the most ‘normal’ one. “This Grave is Taken” is a rhythm with some harmony and what seem to be sounds hailing from the Middle East. I think it could be described as a drone where, instead of all layers being FX or unknown sounds, it’s a drone where one of the layers is a rhythm. The atmosphere with ghouls screaming for a place at the graveyard will appeal to any dark soul.
“Calcified Reflection” is a bit more difficult. Fourteen minutes of dark guitar-based minimalism. Is it a song? No. Is it rock? Hell no. The layers of noise in the back add to the depth of it. The guitar in the front gives you something recognizable yet ‘off’. The layers in the back become more harmonic and audible. The shifts in the music are always there, yet never sudden. And in the end, you find out the subtle noise in the back has taken over the front. Which you noticed because of that one sudden change. Nice. The release ends with “You Take Me Higher”, and yes, here we have an actual post-rock track with vocals included. And yes, I like lesser experimental styles like post- and math-rock. The track fits the album, and in total, this third album is the best thought-out full flow of the Unsub albums. But if the album had been built of tracks just in this last style, I don’t know if VW would be the correct platform to review. And that is a compliment for being able to incorporate styles into what this album shows.
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