Spektr - The Near Death Experience
March 20 2008 at 11:58:03 PM
Two-man outfit Spektr is a collaboration between the members of French Black Metal groups Haemoth and Batthlehorns, suitably titled and acted out on behalf of the invisible and sinister energies purported to surround us all. But The Near Death Experience evokes the supernatural rather than chase after it, a stylized vision of the obscure, depressed and dispersed through the wind (and wind we have lots of). Taking off from the dark segues typical of Haemoth's own recordings, Spektr rotates ambient layers of earth and body—approaching footsteps, stormy gateways and inaudible squelches of uncertain harm with horridly distorted minor-chords blasting alongside a gas-leaking maw, blurred and finished with expediency. Rather than simply parrot the parent act over excessive keyboard drones, however, the album is driven by its reflexive percussion in the appropriate, if slightly contrived, pairing with new techniques the complete opposite of their main endeavors. Unbalanced jazz refrains are hatched and barely settle in amidst faux crepitations of vinyl being fed through the entropic chain. Tracks like "Astral Descent," "Whatever the Case May Be" and "His Mind Ravaged, His Memory Shattered," fall between Mayhem, Krzysztof Komeda and the Bohren und der Club of Gore. But it does not relinquish its objective for sport—a sickly portrait that fits among the more disturbing acts to crawl from underneath Marianne's fair garment. As a bonus, the disc includes a CD-ROM video shot by Spektr and Jean Phillipe Astoux, slash editing stock footage in an abstract visual presentation similar to films like Decasia or Begotten.
[Todd DePalma]
Spektr
The Near Death Experience
2006
Candlelight
http://www.candlelightrecordsusa.com
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