Review by UnhinderedbyTalent for Sun of the Blind - Skullreader (2009)

Darkspace member's solo output is arguably more than covered off in terms of quality by Wintherr with his Paysage d'Hiver releases.  With a lot of that discography still to discover it was on my mind to park listening to Zhaaral's single album under his Sun of The Blind logo until I had fully explored his bandmate's much more vast list of releases (the first of which will arrive on vinyl this weekend as it happens).  As I alluded to in the forum thread, Skullreader is a grower needing more than a cursory listen to fully appreciate what it delivers.

Despite me having spent numerous hours with it, I am still not overly in love with it.  If anything I find it to be great background music, which is hardly glowing praise and does sound unfair when it is obvious that there is lots of evidence of talent on this record.  This a very lush and melodic experience overall and not one that relies too much on just swooshing atmospherics to set the scene.  The repetition on the record breeds an assuring familiarity as it plays but at the same time makes it impossible to maintain the focus solely upon just the music.  It does need more atmosphere though as it is far too warm sounding (without being Hellenic) as a result of the lush and rich melodies.  Whilst I cannot fault the effort and the means behind it, I have to conclude that the delivery is off, resulting in an album that seems to just pass me by as opposed to give much in the way of snapping my attention onto it for just over forty minutes.

Zhaaral is really a victim of his bandmates success as I have heard very similar ideas done much better by Wintherr (consistently so over the cross-section of the discography I have heard) and as a result I can't help but feel Skullreader just to be an attempt to get something off Zhaaral's chest that he himself was probably over quite quickly - hence the one release only.  It isn't a bad album but it just gets a bit dreary the more you try to chip away at it to glean some sense of excitement and direction.