Husere Grav

You Are Transparent

Crucial Blast

CD $12.00

10/01/2013 655035045825

BLAZE 008

MP3 $6.93

10/01/2013 655035045825

The mysterious Husere Grav arose from the ashes of black metal duo Homunculus in 2006, and over the past eight years has released some spectacular pieces of dread-filled industrial blackness. Following the 2012 CD Ten Graves, as well as splits with Meditations, TRTRKMMR and Robedoor, their latest full-length offering comes via the Crucial Blaze imprint. The macabre ambience and ghostly black drift of You Are Transparent recalls the charnel perfume of early-’90s black metal, the desolate early industrial sounds of the Broken Flag label and the subterranean reverberations that Lustmord pioneered on albums like Heresy and The Monstrous Soul.
These seven crushing, crepuscular dronescapes are littered with bursts of creepy metallic whirr, pipe organ and ghastly reverb that rise above a sea of churning, distorted low-end rumble. Ritualistic percussion and blasts of distorted synth drift in slow motion through the sulfurous opener “Red Room,” adding to the album’s already hallucinatory atmosphere. This surreal, creepy vibe runs through the whole disc, as “Terrors” erupts into a raging delirium of angelic screams and black winds, the swirling, dreamlike din drenched in endless reverb. “Lines” drops a minimal, menacing rhythmic throb into the middle of whirling drones and jet-roar distortion.
As the listener drifts further out across the abyss, the sound mutates, transforming into a vast, ethereal roar, hypnotic and speaker-rattling, before erupting into walls of incandescent, distorted synth. These immense, ominous dronescapes and waves of hypnotic rumble are bathed in a carcinogenic glow that stretches all the way into the closing mechanical pulse of “No Dreams,” ending the album like some strange combination of Tim Hecker’s granular, ambient soundscapes and the monotonous, blackened rumble of old-school Italian industrial artists like Maurizio Bianchi and Mauthausen Orchestra. This is true dream-music for the end times.
Released as part of Crucial Blast’s Crucial Blaze series, You Are Transparent comes in a clear DVD-style case with a sixteen-page art zine, sealed with a printed obi band.