Starer’s debut album is a majestic journey across a vast uncharted landscape filled with the breathtaking sounds of symphonic atmospheric black metal. "18º Below the Horizon,” is an extremely cinematic sounding release that is constructed in such a compelling fashion that keeps you fully engaged right from the first track.
The artist behind this one-man solo project really takes atmospheric black metal and forms his own unique vision. I find the massive sounding arrangements and haunting symphonic elements create a profound sounding world wrapped in a blanket of comforting darkness. The production quality is also very impressive, especially when pertaining to the guitar parts and how the notes ring out in a triumphant manner. When listening to the compositions of this album I noticed that the music flows with great synergy, while also exploring a variety of different tempo changes and structural changes.
Out of the six tracks featured on this album, I definitely believe listeners are going to find little to criticize and instead will be intently listening to the epic symphonic elements that drive the artist’s musical vision. The opening song for example, “First Morning Light,” is composed extremely well and music evolves with such haunting grace. You feel overwhelmed by this massive rush of emotionally driven sounding symphonic sounds, but those elements never sound gimmicky, or cheaply thrown together. Also, the guitar riffs construct these mesmerizing mountains of raw sounding distortion to help strengthen the tormented vocal parts. I thought the opening song alone was a tremendous piece of music and built up an even greater level of anticipation for the next song.
Track number two, “Dayspring,” begins with a more intense black metal style by throwing you into a blizzard full of ear shattering blast beats and grim sounding guitar riffs. In the background you hear the cinematic elements provide a harmonious touch to deviate from the more fearsome sounding instrumental compositions. On the third song, “Son of the Fire,” there seems to be more catchy sounding riffs thrown into the symphonic mix and you can definitely hear some influence from the band Emperor at times during the song. The song also happens to be the longest track off of the album, so the artist is allowed plenty of time to experiment and guide you through this void like dimension of cosmic terror.
The last three songs, “Umbra,” “Vessel” and “Uncovering,” are solid pieces of music and do not stray too far from what was presented on the first half of the album. You hear what seems to be an endless amount of dynamic black metal arrangements that build these monumental sounding landscapes. “Uncovering,” was probably my favorite song out of the three, because the guitar parts were unpredictable and created this climate of blackened sounding entropy.
In conclusion, I cannot find too much to complain about here, especially considering how well the artist constructed this album from beginning to end. Also, the album never sounded sloppy which is primarily due to the solid production and musicianship. If people are tired of hearing black metal albums that end up sound like Darkthrone light, or are made by people who care more about their image instead of their musical talent, then you definitely need to give Starer’s, “18º Below the Horizon,” a listen.
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