Oracle MoonGarden of Shadows |
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When you've tired of all of the hyped up and heavy on the tasteless and disproportioned doom, gloom, and sadistic cynicism cloaked in an ever after cold winter's black, try a brisk soothing walk through the garden… Garden of Shadows changed my opinion of what Black Metal was fast becoming-either a grim falsehood of combined romanticized elements that hid the internal fire that burned beneath layer upon layer of overproduction and overmodulation, or a loosely plotted design that quickly loses its focus in a one-dimensional lowlight of dread and decay. "Oracle Moon" does not drown in a pool of gothic fantasies or harrowed histrionics for the purpose of searching a lost identity, but what it does allow a radiant energy to peer through the nocturnal mist by way of its own design-there is no searching, no dismissive derision for the sake, and we're not quickly blown off by something which has no beginning… no end. But Garden of Shadows, praiseworthy as they are, are not alone in the night for which so many continue to travel down the left-hand path in search of the dark throne of underworld supremacy. And while I'll stop short of comparing such epic moments as "Oracle Moon," and "Citadel of Dreams," (one of the best tracks on this or any of another charred concoction for which we've sat emblazon eyed and peerless through) as requisitioned remains from the throes of yesterday's God Dethroned or Amon Amarth's non-"Avenger-like" tactics, there is a grandeur embodied within this sheer instrumental intelligence, based upon harmonic interludes and melodic falls that crash intermittently into the traditional body below… "Oracle Moon" embodies a struggle between the dark and the light, sometimes but never more than a moment, caught in the gray area of uncertainty but guided always, by a continual urging to stay the course where the ultimate enlightenment waits just beyond this "Twilight Odyssey…" Released by Earache
Records Limited. Review by Vinnie Apicella [va85@columbia.edu] |