It's always interesting (to me at least!) when a work which labels itself so perfectly in both project name and album title still succeeds in offering up surprises in tone here and there. With their debut symphony 'Funerals From The Astral Sphere', Midnight Odyssey's sole member Dis Pater manages this from the first delicate, mournful woodwind notes that wander forth. When 'atmospheric', 'doom' and 'ambient' are tossed in with the Black Metal plinth in descriptions of a band, the languid neo-classical opening of 'Fallen From Firmament' is a gentle pinch awake. Filling the same kind of musical space as pioneers Elend and early Arcana it draws you in gently on a golden cord and allows the music to take shape around you for a time. It slowly conjures rather than drops everything on you at once. When the thunder comes, and it does on great Burzum tinged wings and Emperor riffs, it rises from this quiet as though you have knowingly allowed yourself to step into the path a cosmic storm and be swept away. The drum sound and style is excellent and the harsh vocals are wrapped within but never lost amidst the tempest of black metal riffs that accompany the blast.
This is a beautifully composed and performed journey; almost two hours of musical landscapes that travel from the rich clean vocals on passages such as ' Lost' gliding that line between Arcana and Dead Can Dance to the cosmic inclinations of such black metal as early Limbonic Art, recent Exiled From Light and the introspective aspects of old Burzum. Riffs colour and strengthen the keyboards in a sometimes cold, always dark swirl as though passing through the clouds of some nebula. It suggests mysteries revealed but the purpose always somehow obscured.
This is a long piece to absorb, or to fall into, but the sense of expansive melody is never lost, nor is the momentum. It flows on some dark, ethereal motion that comes to crest and then subside into quiet pools for a while before being called onwards. It blends the neo classical and the black metal in a way that never leaves in doubt the roots of the music and never puts a foot near the currently popular post-rock waters, either. Somehow this marriage, the classical and the metal, works so much better for me. There is a consistency in purpose and intent in all sides of the music here that blurs the line without transplanting the roots.
I have no lyric set here, nothing but the music to go on but that is fine for the moment. I have wrapped myself in it and just let it take me where it wills. So a long journey, yes, but a hugely impressive one and beautifully constructed into a whole.
It's been a good year for atmospheric Black Metal but the neo classical mystery of Midnight Odyssey so far holds the crown for me.
http://www.midnight-odyssey.com
http://www.myspace.com/midnightodysseyband
Gizmo
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