doom / black metal / dark ambient
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Sometimes, I load a whole bunch of albums to review into my Winamp-media player, check the 'shuffle' button and hit play. Then I start doing some other stuff, writing stories for example, or cleaning the bathroom. Yesterday, after I published all the new articles, I did exactly that. The playlist started with a two-minutes lasting grindcore tune and by the time I was in the kitchen, a song from this freaky and haunting gem suddenly started playing. I rushed back into the living room, watched who created these delightful hellish sounds and unchecked the shuffle-button. This I had to hear out entirely.
Hyponic was formed in Hong Kong, back in 1996. A first album, 'Black Sun' appeared in 2001, followed by 'The Noise Of Time' in 2005. Perhaps the band is most notable for their slowed down version of Death's 'The Philosopher' which they recorded for a tribute compilation. Now, over a decade after the previous full-length, the mysterious act returns with '前行者' (which Google translates as 'Former Monk'). And my god, what a brilliant monster this has become?
The album pretty much sounds like a slowed down and stretched out black metal album, which obviously drags us into the doomish regions of the metal universe. Yet, it also sounds like a drone doom version of Pink Floyd with its elaborate and dreamy (or nightmarish) guitar solos.The whole thing is slow, like a thick black slime crawling through my speakers, covering everything in a crushing blanket of drones, dark ambient soundscapes and martial ambient passages. That being said, if Puissance and Sunn O))) would make an album together, it would pretty much sound like this one.
This is as post-apocalyptic as it can possibly get. Especially the track '飄流', which sounds like echoing waves of despair over a barren wasteland, hours after humanity fought its very last war and lost it. By the end, there's an eerie cover of Virus' 'Intro'. I don't know the original track, hell, I don't even know which Virus they're covering but this cover is one brilliant piece of audibly darkness. This whole album is a perfect blend of dark ambient, drone and depressive black metal, here and there joined by a deep, growling voice.
Or in other words: "wow"
Serge
Hyponic was formed in Hong Kong, back in 1996. A first album, 'Black Sun' appeared in 2001, followed by 'The Noise Of Time' in 2005. Perhaps the band is most notable for their slowed down version of Death's 'The Philosopher' which they recorded for a tribute compilation. Now, over a decade after the previous full-length, the mysterious act returns with '前行者' (which Google translates as 'Former Monk'). And my god, what a brilliant monster this has become?
The album pretty much sounds like a slowed down and stretched out black metal album, which obviously drags us into the doomish regions of the metal universe. Yet, it also sounds like a drone doom version of Pink Floyd with its elaborate and dreamy (or nightmarish) guitar solos.The whole thing is slow, like a thick black slime crawling through my speakers, covering everything in a crushing blanket of drones, dark ambient soundscapes and martial ambient passages. That being said, if Puissance and Sunn O))) would make an album together, it would pretty much sound like this one.
This is as post-apocalyptic as it can possibly get. Especially the track '飄流', which sounds like echoing waves of despair over a barren wasteland, hours after humanity fought its very last war and lost it. By the end, there's an eerie cover of Virus' 'Intro'. I don't know the original track, hell, I don't even know which Virus they're covering but this cover is one brilliant piece of audibly darkness. This whole album is a perfect blend of dark ambient, drone and depressive black metal, here and there joined by a deep, growling voice.
Or in other words: "wow"
Serge