Search - Legion :: Leviathan

Eine Kliene Nichtmusik

avlsa synpunkt | In the Machine | 09/30/2001

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Some albums put a smile on your face, put a song in your heart, and make the vagaries of life seem a little easier to bear.
Friends, this is not such an album. Leaking out of the disturbed mind of one Andrew Lagowski, who some might remember as a co-conspirator of some of Lustmord's more notorious forays into sound, comes a further delineation of the path into utter isolation and somnolence. At points in this album, the atmosphere is so cryogenic that it is difficult to remember that this was allegedly a piece of music for other humans to hear. Ghosts of echoes, a bit of ritual hymn in one place, skeletal rhythm in another, and in an extended piece, hardly anything except a low drone which resurfaces about every ten seconds. Despite the absolute lack of traditional song structure and emphasis on texture, this is no new age album. The most depraved growlings Slayer by comparison seem reassurring campfire ditties compared to the desolation evoked in this recording. There is a definite nautical theme evoked by the title and the brief, cryptic story that Lagowski writes in the notes. And indeed it sounds at time as if you're drifting along the bottom of some unfathomably large ocean, with no consciousness of anything save drifting and the surrounding void. I own this album, but I advise anyone interested to listen at their own risk-a frighteningly abandoned aura surrounds one when listening."