Described as “tragic black metal,” Lamentations of the Ashen weaves a range of elements most closely associated with funeral doom into its sound, to feature prominently alongside leader/sole member Bon Vincent Fry’s more blackened influences. But on Libertine Cyst—the new, third album from the Albuquerque-based solo project, Fry simply has too many ideas that he incorporates into the album, which at times, come off as unfocused and confusing.
The problem here is that this kind of epic, doom-tinged black metal has been done before, and more deftly. Take the new Fórn album, The Departure of Consciousness, or anything by Inter Arma—bands like these fully integrate the heavier, slower parts of their songs with black metal. When a song transitions or builds, you can hardly tell it’s happening because it feels so natural. For Lamentations of the Ashen, it sounds more like Fry is moving through sections—here’s the slow bit, here’s the part where we do some tremolo and growling, here’s the slow bit back again. It kind of feels like watching him think, and it can be a little exhausting.
The length of these pieces can be a little tiring as well. Libertine Cyst contains just four tracks, but they add up to a collective hour and five minutes of music. And not all of them retain their focus throughout, as different sections of songs don’t always seem to logically flow from one to the other or connect thematically. On each track, there are multiple detours into sludge riffs, soloing, spoken word and acoustic sections that sound weirdly like Mount Eerie. (Take the bit about ten minutes into “Dissentient Cyclic Echelons, for example”) The only thing that really holds the album together is an overwhelming feeling of wistfulness and sadness.
The track I liked the most was “II”—the longest song on the album, at almost 19 minutes. The first six-or-so minutes of the song feel like the point in the album where the band is reaching for more chaos and more speed. The blast beats, which were never tight to begin with, become more off-kilter as the song grows faster and sounds like the band is about to fall apart. On other songs, it sounds like Lamentations of the Ashen are trying to be the Pallbearer of black metal, especially with the classic rock-styled soloing near the end of “A Profane Illvmination.” Pallbearer are the masters of creating a crushing sense of anguish and gloom, so it makes sense that Libertine Cyst might want to try out some of their tricks.
The production on this album feels cavernous sometimes, like recording was done in a large bathroom. While I don’t usually mind (read: often thoroughly enjoy) albums that aren’t professionally-crafted, the already numerous elements on the record seem to crash and echo into each other. But that’s a minor issue, and if your other main problem is having too many ideas, at least you’ve made an interesting album, which is more than a lot of bands can say.
-Joy
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