Aphotic/Dusk "Split" CD
[Cursed]
I was excited to see this show up in the mail because I've been itching to hear some new Aphotic material since I really enjoyed their last release.  And this is a nice looking split that works out almost as though it includes an EP from each band, since the total running time is the perfect length and each group has their own set of songs under their own subtitle and everything.  Aphotic's half, dubbed "To Find New Darkness", opens the disc with four new tracks of midpaced gloominess that sounds very much akin to classic Katatonia - a style that I absolutely love and am always searching to find more of from bands who know how it should be done.  Aphotic is damn sure one of those bands, and these four songs have a great recording that makes for some of their most promising material to date.  Expect persistent rhythms built around simplistic chord progressions that are accented by soft keyboards and occasional lead melodies, while the vocals range from effective snarls to subdued monotone singing.  "Sea" is slightly faster than the other tracks, even closing with some chugging picking patterns; while "All We Have is This..." makes more prominent use of melodic lead lines along with "Spade".  The recording sounds fucking great here.  Everything is thick and super clear, and the tones are effective as well.  If I could change anything I'd make the guitars slightly more dominant, as right now the drums cut through the mix a little and join with the vocals to push the guitars under by just a hair, but that's not a real issue for me.  I can't hear much bass either, but they actually make very tactful use of the synths, and the guitar tone is nice and crisp.  I think they're using live drums this time as well.  I'm not entirely sure since the cymbals sound sort of clinical sometimes, but regardless the percussion is a lot thicker than it has been in the past, so this is the best sound they've achieved overall.  Dusk's portion of the disc is dubbed simply "The Slumber".  Worth mentioning is that this is not the Dusk from Pakistan, but the defunct American doom band who released a retrospective CD called "Mourning... Resurrect" on Lost Disciple Records a few years ago (the band also featured all three members of Aphotic's current lineup at the time of this recording).  These are the five songs from their unreleased final recording session from way back in 1997, and it's pretty cool to see them get a proper release like this.  Unfortunately, like some of the material on "Mourning... Resurrect", I feel that the band's incredibly promising and powerful brand of massive doom metal is greatly hindered by a sub-par recording.  Despite the fact that the drummer is fucking great, the drums are really thin and clicky, so they cut through the mix and have a really weird and unbalanced sense of distance happening - notably in the fact that snare is overly loud and has a weird echo to it.  The clean and acoustic guitars employed sound beautiful, but the distorted guitars are a little muddy and don't fill the space as much as the drums and vocals do.  The bass is pretty much inaudible, so my main thing is that I think a stronger and louder guitar tone could've helped gloss over some of the other problem areas.  But there's no point in dwelling on that.  For those uninformed, Dusk was a band that really took a creative spin to the doom genre.  The vocals were generally low growls that ventured into strained midrange screams at times, and the music did of course tend to be slow to midpaced and heavy, but they used a lot of very atypical dissonance in their chord phrasings (to a Confessor degree in "Perpetual Shrieks"), often spicing up the picking patterns and employing a ton of creative drumming to add character to the songs.  Some of these songs are much shorter than average for the group ("Steal My Soul" is less than three minutes!), but that offers a nice change of pace from the pounding six- to seven-minute compositions, though most all of the songs offer dynamic shifts with clean passages, tempo changes, and general atmospheric twists.  The layout looks nice and consistent and uses a very limited sense of bleak color and textured imagery.  Neither band includes lyrics, so all you get is one black and white photo per band.  I have to say that I really think this looks professional, and I enjoy the design a lot.  Certainly a fitting presentation for the music held within.  This is a great split.  I wish Dusk had a better recording, but your ears can adjust and ignore it for the quality of the songwriting, and it's just awesome to get to hear songs that have been unavailable for eight years like this.  As for Aphotic, I'm still a big supporter of the band and I really have my hopes up that they'll be in a position to record a full-length soon enough.  Keep an eye out for that, and definitely look into this split in the meantime.  Good work. (7/10)
Running time - 44:52, Tracks: 12
[Notable tracks: Spade, All We Have is This..., Steal My Soul, Moonbeams]
Cursed Productions - http://www.cursedproductions.com

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