Reviews list for Wolvserpent - Aporia:Kāla:Ananta (2016)

Wolvserpent are an odd duo in terms of the often life or death choice of where to put a band based on their sound. The anally retentive readers amongst you may have a full blown aneurysm trying to safely store this complex blend of doom, death, black, drone, folk and harrowing classical influences into a safe and neat little pigeonhole. Add to the fact that this latest release (still not typing the proper title) is actually a 40 minute single-song composition that takes you through everyone of the above listed experiences at least once and your heads may even pop. Take my advice, create an "Other" or "Unknown" folder/shelf/record box/CD tower and stick it in there.

If you are already familiar with Wolvserpent then you won't be disappointed here. It is hard to review any Wolvserpent release because there is so much going on and to be honest I still don't think that my humble words would a) prepare you for the actual experience or b) do it real justice as a piece of wonderfully composed and thought out music. It is the recording of a mental actual state, a forty minute snapshot of a parallel universe in which although it is very beautiful and mesmerising you still can't fight the feeling that something wicked could come this way at any moment. In every sensation tingling moment of surreal transcendence there's a niggling doubt in the back of your head that a looming black cloud of nefarious torment is not just about to sweep in on the westerly wind.

It is safe to say that the track takes you on a journey, which is basically what all music should do.

Wolvsepent were a duo from Boise, Idaho, comprising drummer and violinist Brittany McConnell alongside guitarist and vocalist Blake Green. Aporia:Kāla:Ananta, despite its forty-minute runtime, is officially an EP and marks the band's final release as it appears the duo have now gone their separate ways. It consists of a single 40 minute track that blends drone metal, ambient, and classically-influenced passages. It begins with an ethereal and cosmic ambient prologue that eases us gently into the piece. As this intro subsides, it is replaced by a plaintive, lone violin which then takes on a degree of urgency with a busy, whirling refrain as it is joined by Blake's percussion and low vocal croons, building in intensity to a crescendo - and then a sudden stop. By now we are fifteen miutes in and the plaintive-sounding violin of earlier returns, taking us by the hand and leading us into a metallic hellscape of heavily distorted drones and feedback that follows, like a stringed Virgil chaperoning a horrified Dante through a drone metal Inferno.

This is where the meat of the piece resides, where massive chords drone at funereal pacing, transformed by huge levels of distortion and tortured feedback, sparse and sluggish drumbeats pound like percussive shockwaves and the vocals become deep heaving groans, as if issued by some suffering titan of the deep. This isn't to say that the remainder of the album is just a heaving homogonous drone, though, as the violin paints some lighter streaks within these lumbering sonic thunderheads, but the gravitational vortex at the heart of this is as heavy as anything you would expect from Sunn O))) or their ilk. The piece finally ends with multi-layered dissonant violin that sounds like a demented calliope trailing off to take it's tale elsewhere.

There is no doubt that Wolvserpent are not for everyone, but the imagination within their sounsdcapes and the sheer sonic devastation they can wreak with what is quite a spare instrumental pallette is extremely impressive. At times sounding fragile and ethereal, like it could just float away, at others seismically slow and mountainously heavy, as if threatening to tear itself apart, this is a piece that takes the listener on a journey through time and space on a search for some kind of spritual awareness. Definitely one of those that is worth putting the time in with.