Moonkight : " Valinor"

I was drawn to this one man project out of California, due to the fact it was called depressive suicidal black metal, which is true to a certain extent. Its a dense grinding drone that is carried on an under current of double bass. The vocals have the distant dryness to their rasp putting them in a similar vein as An Autumn For Crippled Children, along with some of the guitar melodies though the are more rooted in dirty unrepentant  Celtic Frost like metal which which the vocals dip down into a more death metal sound. The blown out production of "Bright Knives made things too fuzzy to really look through the ringing of cymbals mixed with distortion becomes a blur.

"Acotinum" is a reverse of the previous as the vocals become fuzzy with distortion, while the music gains clarity and develops the kind of  beautifully bleak melodies that dsbm is supposed to have. The first lyric I can understand are the words " disgust you" that pour of the rabid screaming that comes curdling out of " Helplessness", they go for bigger epic thrash riffs on this one like a more chaotic version of Bathory if the viking bombast was replaced with grind core agony.

It sounds like tape feedback that is squealing all over " Pleasure Funereal' and distracting from the throb of what might be an otherwise decent song. It almost makes the song unlistenable, but I push through as I like the ideas just not the presentation on a production level.Things clear up for "Broken Blade" which focuses on the ringing guitar that eventually finds itself in a Burzumy drone with roaring vocals in the distant caverns. There is a cool melodic guitar part that crawls out from where it is buried in the drone. Horus messes around with some atmospheric droning before going into the title track.There is a slower paced majestic soaring to "Valinor". The vocals find a more fitting space to occupy. The main guitar melody hangs around popping in and out of the song. Clean guitar finally adds another color to the sonic dynamics.

The rawness of this album might make every one happy who wants this to be art and too cool for school, which I am not sure is the intention of this project, but rather made by some one who has learned from the Vargs of the world to get the worst mic possible. It works better when its a happy accident. Some times its hard to tell which is which here. The production in a couple of place makes the album almost unlistenable and you really have to force yourself through it.  Overall there are good ideas buried in the often messy compost heap. I'll give this a 7.5 as it works more often than it doesn't but when it stinks its foul.