Infinite Despair (Subconscious Dissolution Into The Continuum - Esoteric)

Member Name: Burning_Darkness

Product:	Subconscious Dissolution Into The Continuum - Esoteric
Date:	26/06/09 (7 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Incredibly powerful, brilliantly executed

Disadvantages: Draining, a difficult (if ultimately rewarding) listen

Esoteric are a strange and otherworldy band, occupying headspace somewhere between the intense, sludgy, unconventional output of Khanate and Neurosis with their own unique brand of ethereal, drug-soaked, funeral doom.

Their fourth full length, 'Subconscious Dissolution in the Continuum' continues in the vein of their prevous album, "Metamorphogenesis" consisting of nearly an hour of dissonant, painfully slow doom riffs overlaid by guttoral growls, counterpointed by agonised, multi-layered screams. With an average song length of 15 minutes, the album builds slowly from mesmerising, lumbering slowness, slowly gaining momentum, occasionally reaching a plateau of disjointed, chugging riffs, like some vast unimaginable beast stirring in its slumber.

There are occasional periods of serenity, with achingly sad yet somehow almost hopeful guitar melodies hinting at chinks of light penetrating some infinite abyss, but with time these gradually give way increasingly to further waves of crushing doom, sharing space with them for a time, before they in turn give way to crashing crescendos of metallic walls of sound, complete with urgent stabs of rasping screams, as if threatening to break through consciousness to some other unknown realm.

Its an extremely powerful, -and draining- listening experience, but also a very moving and intriuguing one that demands multiple listens. As the album title would suggest, the music has a deeply philosophical bent, languishing in the depths of nihilism, querying existentialism and the nature of consciousness, weighing the human experience up against the infinite and apparently meaniningless cosmos that we inhabit. The album is like sliding up and down the ladder of consciousness, or being immersed underwater and coming tantalisingly close to breaking the surface before being pulled back down into the infinite depths. Mindblowing stuff.

Tracklisting-

1. Morphia 15:56
2. The Blood of the Eyes 12:38
3. Grey Day 17:05
4. Arcane Dissolution 05:18
Total playing time 50:52

Summary: Brilliant philosophical funeral doom