Metal / Drone / Sludge / Ambient / Doom - many bands are fond of using a whole bunch of tags to label their music, even though it doesn't necessarily incorporate numerous elements from those styles. Sonance, however, are one of those bands whose music manages to truly and simultaneously fall into all of these categories.
Like Ghosts, their debut album, doesn't seek to impress you with fancy artwork or clever song titles. Instead, it aims to impress you with its diversity and competence. The two songs on this album total in at around 40 minutes and together they form a musical journey through bitterness, despair and redemption.
Side A starts off with a sharp violin scratch, then immediately throws you in the middle of a horrific noise pit, full of crushing riffage, pounding drums squaring off against angar screaming and tormented howls. Things gradually cool off and you find yourself slowly submerged in some beautiful ambient passages that seem to have taken over the song. But don't get too comfortable, because the band soon locks into another loud'n'heavy part with a thick wall of sound that smashes you into the floor. The music twists and crawls like a giant anaconda writhing in mortal agony and everything feels chaotic and otherworldly. After alternating between unsettling and blissful atmospheres, the record then switches over to Side B. For the most part, the second song focuses on creating a beautiful ambiance but, as you may guess, it is eventually shattered when the band unleashes another flurry of blackened, doom-laden riffs and harsh screams.
At the end of Like Ghosts, you feel burned out and depleted of all energy. It is an album that takes a lot out of you, but it offers a lot back, too. Sonance are very adept at creating haunting, disturbing music that may not be suited to humming along, but which instead focuses on capturing beauty and ugliness inside one single moment.
This is one of the best submissions we've ever received in our email and I'm very grateful I had the opportunity to experience this album. Thanks a lot, blokes!
S O N ▲ N C E
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