In Swathes of Brooding Light

Back in 1999, Ebonylake from United Kingdom gained some attention because of the strange sound of their first album “On the Eve of the Grimly Inventive”. It’s the sound that either you’ll stick to it or you’ll hate it by the first notes, but surely it won’t be indifferent. So Ebonylake was formed in 1997 and after the demo of ’98 and the full length album of ’99 they split up. After 12 years they come back with a new full length, “In Swathes of Brooding Light”, and even more desire for experimentation.

Their sound is a mixture of avant-garde, progressive, classical music elements, Death metal parts, experimenting with disharmonic melodies, with instruments beyond the ordinary and with strange passages. The whole album is a journey in fear and in paranoia with a strong theatrical aspect. In many parts images of opera came to my mind. The riffs are very technical and with much variety. Every instrument has been worked out very well both concerning the composition both their playing style. It appears that the band consists of high level musicians. The vocals have also much variety, in some parts typical Black Metal vocals, in other parts Death or clean goth-rock. In some parts we can listen to female vocals as also chanting. The mix is very good, maybe the vocals should be a little higher so as to be more audible. The production is generally clean apart from some parts that it becomes dirty adding a noise touch to the compositions. The lyrics are written in English, very poetic and allegorical.

Although the sound is quite strange and experimental I didn’t get bored nor I got tired. Surely you have to listen to it many times in order to discover those that this album has to offer. It isn’t suitable for every taste and it isn’t Black Metal. However it’s a very good come back and everyone who like experimentation at all levels, you will discover a very interesting album. The rest of you try to listen to it before you buy.