Aphotic "Stillness Grows" CD
[Flood the Earth]
This disc collects all of Aphotic's recorded material to date, three EP's: "Stillness Grows", "Under Veil of Dark", and the self-titled debut. Interestingly enough, this material tends to revolve around thick, despondent doom with a good dose of melody and some slightly more driving tempos, fusing all sorts of vocal styles from growls or moody singing to raspy snarls - all within the framework of songs that average a brief three minutes or so!? I actually very thoroughly enjoy the opening songs from "Stillness Grows" as well, the atmosphere is very consistently bleak and powerful, and they actually flirt with a lot of riffing that's a bit atypical in its dissonance and chord phrasings, not to mention some of the less straightforward rhythm patterns. Take for instance the masterfully lush clean passages, plodding chord progressions, and discordant notes/picking patterns of the incredible "Spores", for example. The six-minute "Lunar Ride" musically starts out sounding not too unlike Katatonia circa "Brave Murder Day"/"Discouraged Ones", but the acoustic guitars and minimal singing voice are certainly aside from that angle, and the layered melodies are a bit thicker as well. Also worth pointing out is the fact that keyboards are perfectly integrated as backing texture in these songs, as not once am I irritated by their presence. The recording is effective, too. The guitars are thick, the bass faintly evident as added density, the synths can be heard but aren't distracting, the drums possess enough density to get by, and I have no qualms with the vocals. The percussion could sound a bit better, and the mix slightly clearer on some level in regards to the guitar layering, but it really does sound quite nice. As far as the older tracks go, they're stylistically similar, but drum programming does hinder their force, and the recordings weren't quite as nice either. At times the synths can be dead even with the guitars, which clouds things up. Songs like "Free Me" still demonstrate excellent clean breaks with a lot of feeling, but the clickiness of the drum programming cuts through the atmosphere too much, which i the key setback the machines cause. Of course the band's debut EP was rawer than anything else, not to mention a bit less interesting from a writing standpoint, but hints of what was to come were present. Truly I find these five songs to sound like a fairly decent demo, but it's not until later that the band came into their own. The layout's 50/50 for me. I love the image on the cover, and all in all it looks okay, but I'm not into the generic imagery of desolate trees or the typefaces used on the outer cover, it ends up looking a bit typical. The lyrics carry that desolate sort of appeal as well, though they're not really doing much for me since they're not very evocative. "Existence now in hindsight, Embrace forevermore, Blackened tear, No more fear, Under veil of dark, Up upon my throne..." All in all this is a solid record, but it would've been better in a way had the bonus songs not been included, as they're simply not as intriguing. Regardless though, "Stillness Grows" is a superb EP that I would absolutely recommend to any fan of the style, and I would love to hear more from this band. A significant label needs to pick these guys up and give them a chance to fully realize some more of this material. Very nice. (7/10)
Running time - 50:19, Tracks: 14
[Notable tracks: Benumb, Spores, Lunar Ride, and a few others, especially those from "Stillness Grows"]
Flood the Earth - http://www.floodtheearth.com

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