Schrei Aus Stein

The third entry in the Crucial Blaze line is the new full length disc from Schrei Aus Stein, the experimental black metal/ambient alter ego of Ross Hagen from the drone/ambient outfit Encomiast. I've been a fan and follower of Ross's work with Encomiast going back to the beginning of the last decade, and we've released two of his releases as Encomiast through the Crucial Bliss series over the past five years, so when he emerged last year with this new project that combined his trademark droneological sounds with a noisy, moody brand of mid-paced black metal, I couldn't wait to hear it. The first release from Schrei Aus Stein was a limited edition disc on Starlight Temple Society called Talus that came out in 2009, an eerie blend of frostbitten mid-paced black metal, gothic post-punk throb, and sweeping arctic ambience, an excellent debut that showed that Hagen was going for more than just another downbeat depressive black metal project. Now, Schrei Aus Stein returns with it's second release, a three song full length with songs that average at around thirteen minutes, long majestic soundscapes that still reveal a bit of that Encomiast ambience, but which delve into harsher, more unfriendly terrain than before, mixing together strange industrial dirge, blown-out depressive black metal, and ambient drone into icy realms of hypnotic atmosphere. 

Anyone into the amorphous, melancholy black metal of bands like Velvet Cacoon and Xasthur should investigate Schrei Aus Stein, but this is much more droning and streaked with noise than those bands, often moving into pure ambient buzz within the storms of blackened violence. Like Talus, this is great stuff, and if you enjoyed that debut, you won't go wrong with Schrei Aus Stein's latest.