Year of No Light - Consolamentum (2021)^{Release ID: 29202}

Trance Music, but not Transcendent

Year of No Light founded a diamond in the rough in 2010 with Ausserwelt as they managed to win over a lot of folks with its crushing atmosphere. I was unfortunately not apart of that group, but I could, at the very least, recognize its quality in both its performance as well as the execution. But Year of No Light have always proven to be more of a texture first, everything else second band and this new album, Consolamentum is no different. These grooves are slow and brooding with a lot of comparisons to the heaviest side of doom metal. But without anything that resembles a theme or idea, it all just blends together. There are some cool moments on "Alètheia" and "Réalgar", but they do not serve a purpose much beyond that. Furthermore, the instrumentals have grown dull; I found myself losing interest during the wall of sound outro of "Came", meanwhile, the lack of a true bass presence really bothers me since it brings tracks like "Objuration" to a screeching halt. By comparison to Amenera that I just reviewed yesterday, I cannot see myself returning to this Year of No Light album very often. Not that I would want to return to the cold and dark world in the first place...