I have no idea what they put in the water supply up in Finland, but I’d think twice before drinking it! There are some incredible, dark and twisted doom-influenced bands from that cold part of the world, and Astral Sleep are one such band. Having never visited Tampere, I can only assume it to be one of the darkest, bleakest, most desolate places imaginable judging by the sound of this EP – it’s quite a monster...
The band describe themselves as `Doom Metal with a twist’ and that is certainly what you get here; aside from the crushing doom, there is something decidedly off-kilter about this release. First of all – three tracks with not only the same title, but the same lyrics. Seriously, I’m not making this up – the band have used the same set of lyrics for all three versions of `Angel’ – the music for each track written by a different member of the band. It doesn’t stop there however, as there is much musical mayhem as well – Astral Sleep display quite a wide and diverse array of influences, all of which are on display on this unusual EP.
Track 1 is an exercise in crushing death/doom – the first riffs hits you in the face like a ton of extremely dark and evil bricks (if such a thing is possible). The words `monstrous’ and `gargantuan’ spring to mind immediately, and stay present in the mind as the listener is drawn into a vast, epic whirlwind of riffs, darkness, and morbid doom. This is perhaps the most up-tempo of the three `Angel’ songs, and is likely to inflict cranial damage on an unwary listener – there is more than a whiff of classic early My Dying Bride in this song, and some of the more crushing moments of fellow countrymen Swallow The Sun. I also detected some of the folky melancholy of Amorphis in there too, which made for a really pleasant surprise.
Track 2 has a rather different feel to the first track, and is more progressive in style (although the whole EP has a progressive approach) moving slowly between mournful, tortured doom and drifting acoustic passages. There is a slightly tripped-out, insane feel to the music which really reminds me of lunatic astral projectionists Maudlin Of The Well. The music moves along slowly, gently, like massive icebergs drifting and colliding in the Baltic Sea. There is also the return of the keyboard that was used to such great effect in track 1 – adding an extra layer of darkness to the proceedings. The song gently becomes more disturbing until it ends in jarring notes and a cacophony of shrieking.
Track 3 plumbs the depths of bleakness itself – extremely slow, atonal doom riffing laid in stark contrast to sparse, echoing acoustic parts and some seriously desolate vocals! There are also some incredibly satisfying, crushing doom riffs of monstrous proportions – as though Reverend Bizarre had gate crashed Opeth’s party just to make everyone more miserable.
If you love doom in all its dark manifestations, and really want to immerse yourself in something huge, slightly bonkers and very satisfying, I can’t recommend this EP enough. I wouldn’t try to put this Angel on your Christmas tree however, it’s so heavy you’ll spend Boxing Day repairing the floorboards, and cleaning bits of tree out of the furniture.
http://www.myspace.com/astralsleep
http://www.astralsleep.net
