By: Conor O’Dea
Album Type: Full
Length
Date Released: 02/03/2018
Label: Lifeforce
Records
Ancst have evolved, seemingly effortlessly, certainly gracefully,
and sound more like themselves than ever - whatever inner telos they have been moving towards
has been realized in this beautiful album
“Ghosts of the Timeless
Void” CD//DD//LP track listing:
1). Dying Embers
2). Shackles of Decency
3). Concrete Veins
4). Revelation of Deformity
5). Unmasking the Imposters
6). Of Gallows and Pyres
7). Quicksand
8). Republic
of Hatred
9). Dysthymia
10). Sanctity
11). Self-Portrait
The Review:
Lex
transitum per ignem, in honorem Molechi prohibens
Pure
Fucking Hate. As album opening phrases go, this quote from 2017's “Life”
is poignant, jarring, and certainly germane to the themes raised throughout Ancst's
second full-length album, “Ghosts of the Timeless Void”.
Where the film discusses the return of life-form responsible for an extinction
avalanche on Martian soil, one cannot help but think that Ancst's object of antipathy may
be more earthbound. And while we may speak of dying embers and pyres here, the
fires of injustice-fueled rage are an abiding conflagration across the album -
there are no coals cooling in the furnace of Ancst's anger, and the
insatiable Moloch of capitalism continues to consume endless sacrifices.
The sound
that this side of Ancst has been evolving towards, to my mind,
first manifested on track two of the 2013 EP, “The Humane Condition”,
which was partnered by the first release of their first ambient/drone work, “Lamenting
a Dying World”. That track, “Entropie”, captures a sound that
eloquently defines Ancst: polished but savage, graceful, commit
and unrelenting. And they have been prolific: despite this being only their
second full-length, 2017 saw the release of the superb “Furnace” EP as well
as two top-notch splits, one with King Apathy, one with Depravation. This is not to
ignore 2016's brilliant “Stormcaster”, the most fulsome
interlocution of the soundscapes first explored in “Lamenting…”. Across
the course of these releases, Ancst have entered the elite pantheon of 'do
no wrong' bands for me: I always eagerly anticipate new music from them, no
matter what the sonic angle. “Ghosts of
the Timeless Void” is no exception.
It's
interesting to compare LP openers here: “Moloch”
is one of the most explosive album introits that I have ever heard -
instantaneous teeth-kicking power unleashed from go. “Dying Embers” starts off considerably more restrained by
comparison, even slow by Ancst's punishing pace-standards - until about
the 1:00 mark - when everything explodes in dynamic fury. It almost feels like
an inversion of the earlier structure in certain ways. This more thoughtful
approach allows Ancst
to marry the melodic, riff-dense elements of their approach to some mindful
sophistication in terms of metrical and rhythmical variety. But it is never
heavy-handed, never overly obvious, and at no point loses the plot of what
makes Ancst a standout band that places them high in the melodic crust mythos.
Poignant exemplars of this maturation are found throughout the album: in the
opening riffs of “Quicksand”, in the
death-inflected “Unmasking the Imposters”,
in the epic “Republic of Hatred”, in the classic blackened tremolo
work of “Sanctity”. “Dysthymia”, is the closest I have heard
Ancst
to creating what almost sounds like post-black/blackgaze ballad. Meaningless
subgenre references aside, what I am trying to emphasize is that Ancst
have evolved, seemingly effortlessly, certainly gracefully, and sound more like
themselves than ever - whatever inner telos they have been moving
towards has been realized in this beautiful album. Listen to it from start to
finish and love it. I know I did.
“Ghosts of the
Timeless Void” is available here
