Crown of Ascension - Twixt Zero and Infinity

In 2021, I am going to try to give you an album a day to listen to. Each one will be an album that I enjoy enough to have in my collection. I'll talk a little about the album, maybe the band (though I am notorious for not really caring too much about the people behind the music), and whatever thing(s) the album causes me to free associate or riff on.

Let's start this project with one of the more interesting experimental black metal album of 2020, Twixt Zero and Infinity by Crown of Ascension.

Presumably named after a Magic the Gathering card, Crown of Ascension is a new project from Alexander White, whose previous work with Vessel of Iniquity and Uncertainty Principle (among others) are also worth checking out.

This is a solid, maybe even excellent, atmospheric black metal album. Riffs, drums, everything, is in the service of creating the atmosphere.

Ghostly shrieks soaking in a vat of reverb; cardboard gunshot drums; guitars and keyboards in sync, creating something that would be a great black ambient album by themselves; all these add up to a unique and cosmic ambiance.

Falling roughly into what I have begun to call the Void Worship style of black metal, this is an album of delicious sonic terrorism. Alternating waves of bowed cellos and maniac guitar buzz slide in and out of astonishing and pummeling drums. The standard "icy winter forest" atmosphere vibes give way over the course of the album to more febrile "cosmic horror in abandoned basement" feelings.

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Coffin Lurker - Foul and Defiled

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This album answers an incredibly important question: What if Rick Deckard was a goth? A goth replicant that could pass the Voight-Kampff test easily. More importantly, it provides a stunning backdrop to the writing I am supposed to be doing, but keep avoiding. French composer James Kent has always been something of a polarizing figure. Much of his earlier work has been very HOTLINE MIAMI style synthwave. This is most definitely NOT THAT. Instead you a weird robot sex soundtrack - a post-punk mood piece cloaked in goth rock nihilism and sexual malevolence. Gritty, misanthropic, but still atmospheric and ambient, this is some nice stuff! Lustful Sacraments by PERTURBATOR

Trumpet of Amdusias

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