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SPECTRAL LORE
III

I, Voidhanger (2014)
Rating: 7.5/10

Blessed with fantastic sleeve art by Benjamin Vierling, Greek progressive black metallers Spectral Lore has dropped its fourth full-length opus since their 2005 inception. III follows on from 2012’s Sentinel, and it’s fair to say that as the band has progressed it has gotten better.

All of the improvements and incredibly atmospherics are down to one man, namely Ayloss, who is responsible for all instruments and those remote vocal groans and moans. With III you get the sense that to fully appreciate the eerie ambience, one has to lock themselves away in a darkened room and just drop into this 85 or so minute-long black abyss.

The album is delivered in two parts, the first segment consisting of four songs, with the second sporting three. The overall sound is one that can best be described as ambient black metal. The only edginess about the composition comes via Ayloss’ demonic vocal delivery, which is a hoarse, chesty growl delivered from somewhere within the distant walls of ice.

For me, the peculiar soundscapes and almost dream-like sequences can easily survive without those vocals, but it is nice to not be bombarded by the usual scratchy “blearrrrk” sneers. The vocals tend to drift like some black cloud over proceedings, all the while the music varying from being a strange mix of slow, doom-laden discordant whines to more aggressive divisions of tumult. This is especially apparent with the opening ‘Omphalos’, which suggests at first that this is your usual black metal cacophony of racing, barbed guitars and vicious pacey drums.

When the album settles into its comfort zone though, it retains an unpredictable air and comes across more like a weird and slightly wintry soundtrack. Nowhere is this more evident than on the gloomy strains of ‘The Veiled Garden’, a 16-minute shift of the tundra plates where the vocals are just a throaty drift hidden behind a wall of steely guitars. As the track progresses, it soon becomes clear that Ayloss has an eye for the surreal as we’re treated to an eerie blend of enchanting whispers, cold clanks and suspenseful aches until he decides once again to inject that black metal spikiness. Lyrically, it’s all rather poetic as he rasps “O Dream, a painter you are, vivid and exquisite. Winged and unchained, you lead me into worlds of lightness and magnitude”.

Ayloss is certainly a talented individual who is flexible enough to explore any musical genre within an overall, wider black metal framework.

‘The Cold March Towards Eternal Brightness’ is a straight up black metal assault with a grey melody within its arctic guitar streak. Vocally, it’s more guttural death metal at times, but because there is always that feeling of wondering what it is round the next corner, that gives the track – and the album in general – an energetic yet dreamlike quality. ‘The Cold March Towards Eternal Brightness’ once again becomes a peculiar terrain of experimental jingles and subtle tweaks. Lyrically, it reads like an oaken poem plucked from some medieval realm as Ayloss commentates “What is the fabric that makes the dreams of Day? The Statue of Self, sculpted from the hardest, finest rock. A most Noble Warrior. I see it in a great distance, concealed by mist”.

‘Drifting Through Moss And Ancient Stone’ is an accomplished instrumental that with gothic grandeur enables the cover art to come alive, and then we’re onto the second segment of this opus. ‘The Spiral Fountain’ is a sprawling mass of ashen percussion, hoarse vocal burps and a guitar sound that shifts from mid-tempo majesty to faster pace. ‘A Rider Through The Lands Of An Infinite Landscape’ continues the breath-taking exploration, boasting lyrics which speak of the screams of Gaia, organic molecules, majestic landscapes and the outer limits of a cosmic scale.

It’s well thought out progressive extreme metal that climaxes with the lengthy instrumental ‘Cosmic Significance’, which at times comes across as some late 1960s to early 70s meandering prog rock number. As the sporadic extremity is once again forced through the wisps of experimentation, however, it remains a fitting way to end an album that should please the more liberal-minded black metal fans among you.

Neil Arnold

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