Year of No Light - Ausserwelt (Conspiracy/Music Fear Satan)

I never get tired of atmospheric heavy music and regardless of how saturated the badly coined “shoe-gaze” metal genre gets there’s always an act like Year of No Light that captures that exact feeling in their sound. Fans of acts like: Nadja, Methadrone, Hallowed Butchery, Hellas Mounds, Neurosis, Minsk, and Mono will appreciate this one very much. To add to that list I also need to include: Ahab, Evoken, Alcest, Primordial, and Altar of Plagues as this is definitely a heavy storm of unrelenting destruction. Given the intensity of the sounds and my reasons for being engulfed into this massive void I will be best off taking this one apart track by track

“Persephone I”: Eleven minutes of one wandering through a wasteland, barren and complete uninhabited. You can feel the journey and looking for even a mirage to ease your loneliness, but there is none and you continue your aimless path through what appears as a never-ending journey. The sound is blissful and soothing but still very morose, you know something will happen and it’ll be tragic. It’s almost as if the end of the world did come and you were the sole survivor left to rummage through the remains and relive the horror.

“Persephone II” : Some of your burden form the last track is eased with a dramatically beautiful sound of discovery that something does exist and there might be a purpose for your travel afterall. This track is sort of the light at the end of the tunnel, but quickly dissolves into a sense of doom and dread halfway through the track. The guitar comes at you in crushing waves of doom-like riffs and the reverb guitar wails like a banshee from beneath the storm of chords crashing against you. So much for getting out of this one peacefully, or at all…

“Hierophante“: The surreal horror continues through dense melodies as you continue to unveil the misery that you will now absolute sadness, although it is very melodic there is a heavily draped layer of emptiness that clouds the track in a state of balc

“Absesse”: A haunting, atmospheric, instrumental departure from the conscious state of being into the true reality of isolation and spiraling rapidly into a dark crevasse as you come to the horrid, yet relieving realization that your life was in fact rather mundane and uneventful until now, but alas it is over. This is one powerful end to a heavy album in terms of sound and weight of atmosphere so definitely jump on getting this one, especially those who are skeptics and avoid this genre for reasons mentioned already. Really great stuff!!!!