Labels: Debemur Morti Productions
Review by: Alex Deller
For whatever reason, Year Of No Light are a band I never really fell in with. I think I basically ended up ignoring them along with a billion others that seemed to breed like rats in the wake of Isis and the belated coolification of Neurosis and the Melvins. On the basis of ‘Tocsin’, that may have been rather a dick move on my part as this is actually pretty good: an enjoyably atmospheric mix of styles that might draw from the ever-thinning post-rock and post-metal tributaries but does enough dabbling elsewhere to ensure things are kept interesting and unpredictable. Amid the stock shimmers and whumps, for example, there’s a persistent Ennio Morricone vibe that permeates proceedings while synths rise and swell, lending things a sense of clamour that’s informed by if not 100% in debt to the more pomp-prone end of black metal. It’s seamlessly orchestrated, stirring and dynamic whether plumbing murky depths or staring bleary-eyed at the horizon and has served as the perfect soundtrack for numerous journeys to and from work where all I sought was to blot out the chatter of humanity with beatific and all-consuming sonic oblivion.