ARTIST:
> Bird from the Abyss
ALBUM:
> I
GENRE:
> Ethnic / Experimental / Drone
PUBLISHER:
> self-released
YEAR:
> 2009
FORMAT:
> CDR
TOTAL PLAYTIME:
> 13:03
[01]Intro / Beginning at the Center of Chaos / Azathoth and Flute
[02]Song to the Great Black Fox
[03]Ways of Slaughter
[04]Abdul Alhazred's Anxiety
AUTHOR:
> M
Bird from the Abyss is a one-man band from Finland, and this is the project's first release. Stylistically it's very diverse, ranging from the use of many ethnic and folk-instruments to some electric ones, with influences from oriental (mainly Middle East) music and various experimental and metal-genres.
The first song lasts for almost two minutes and consists of some more-and-less gentle guitar drones placed on top of each other for a vast and varying background, and somewhere amidst the droning there's some hissing sounds and spoken vocals. The main thing on the song is the very Middle Eastern flute melody on top of all this, as it gives the song more appeal and originality and just plain fits in great. Sadly, the song is a short one and ends in a dull, quick way. The second song, again around 2 minutes in lenght, is very different. It starts slowly with some thin guitar drone in the background and a zither playing a simple patternt in the front, but soon the zither's "riff" gets more complicated and intriquing whilst still staying rather calm, until the song ends in a really fast vein, too. There's also some electronic ambience and reversed spoken vocals to deepen the mood.
Song three, clocking three and a half minutes, is for it's first minute based on a somewhat jamming acoustic guitar with chimes and an ambient-esque background pattern (by a wooden flute, I presume) backing it up. At one minute the riff goes more dramatic and the guitar is backed by an electric one executing the same riff, along with a variety of percussions. The electric guitar fades away again at two minutes, after which the acoustic guitar continues with a good amount of support from the percussions and quite a lot less support from a bass-sound in the background. Not to break the pattern, this song ends like it would hit a wall with a hasty fade-out. The last song is over five minutes long, and it's based on an occasional acoustic guitar doing a high-pitch melody, a downtuned string-instrument doing a simple and very repetitive pattern that takes up most of the room on the song (and has a nice doomy feel), and a variety of chimes and mostly wooden percussions that create a very varying soundscape to support the bassy pattern and to keep things interesting overall. The song has some pleasantly trance-inducing qualities due to the repetition and the percussions are very interesting, but overall the song would've needed some additional ideas for it to deliver it's full potential. Now the song is ok, nothing more. The song's rather moronic rock-style ending carries the song to end like it hits a wall, and does neither the song or the overall release no justice.
Bare and primitive, two words for describing the visual side. The cover art and the track titles on the back surely show what the band draws it's influence from, but give nothing to examine and to explore while listening to the EP. Sound-wise the EP is pretty much perfect and rather professional, all the sounds are clear and well audible, serving their purpose.
While the songs carry good ideas and a nicely primitive, yet captivating mood due to the small amount of instruments used at a time, they sound like they were finished in a hurry. Why to end all the songs like that? Songs one and two could've easily been made longer too, they would've have more to give than what is possible in such a short time. All in all, the release is promising and a rather nice listen, but it could've been a lot better.