French experimental death/black metal maniacs, Chaos Echoes, have joined forces with Sentient Ruin to bring listeners one ambitious and unfathomable sounding ritualistic performance. This mixed and mastered live soundboard recording is something that you do not hear very often, and the album showcases the band’s very unconventional extreme metal mindset.
Originally released only on CD format, Sentient Ruin is looking to give this album a proper vinyl release that extreme music enthusiasts can obtain. If you are familiar with Sentient Ruin, then you know that this label does not put out generic sounding crap. Chaos Echoes is an act that I was not familiar with before receiving this promo, however, after listening to this release I am very impressed by their dynamic approach to writing extreme metal music. These musicians have a great diverse musical vision that allows them to stretch the boundaries of extreme music, while also paying close attention to the album’s hauntingly vivd sounding atmosphere.
I would best describe this album as an extreme metal experiment that may utilize death metal and black metal elements, but also explores so many layers of different influences that the entire album is one experimental jam session into an abyss of infinite possibilities. The album begins with the track, “Senses of the Nonexistent,” which at first sounds very tranquil in the beginning and eventually develops into a behemoth sounding riff fest of sludgy death doom. You feel like you are being drowned by this massive rush of unapologetic attitude and the band perfectly transitions that same level of aural hostility onto the next song, “Through Kaleidoscopic Haze of Unexpected Extents.” On the second track, the band offers more black metal style riffs, but the complex rhythms and time signatures really standout as something you do not hear often, thus creating a warped soundscape full of nightmarish torment.
On the third song, “享楽主義,” the band continues to twist and alter the musical landscape with a blizzard of fiendish creativity. Finally the band throws in some morbid sounding vocals to add to the blistering chaos, which took me by surprise because I had started to wonder if this was going to be an instrumental album at first. Probably out of album the songs on the album track number four, “Black Mantra,” ended up being my favorite. I really liked the mesmerizing chord progressions used in the beginning of the song, as well as the primitive and abrasive sounding drum parts.
The rest of the album of course features some more experimental offerings like, “Interzone VIII,” “Surrounded and Amazed by these Unplumbed Abysses of the Inverted Sea” and “Soul Ruiner,” all of which features more atypical compositions. The band definitely expands and tears down the walls of what one might expect from an extreme metal album. I enjoyed the ambient touches on the song, “Surrounded and Amazed by these Unplumbed Abysses of the Inverted Sea,” because the song built of this malevolent sounding environment that one might want to use as a film score for an occult themed horror movie.
Chaos Echoes, “Ecstasy With the Nonexistents,” is an album that you are either going to find extremely fascinating, or might drive you insane trying to wrap your head around the complexity of this album’s presentation. I personally believe that this album is worth seeking out if you are a fan of dynamic sounding extreme metal music. This honestly is what children should be listening to in order to expand their musical minds instead of that rotten garbage K-pop, or that piss poor rap music written by some guy with his pants on the ground.
I really enjoy listening to the bands you've been reviewing lately. Keep up the great reviews Robby.
ReplyDelete