Frozen Ocean / Heather Grave – Beyond Anemonautics (Album – Spectral Halls Production)
Genre/Influences: Dark-ambient, doom, metal, cinematographic.
Format: Digital, CD.
Background/Info: This is a split release between two Russian projects. Each artist composed two cuts.
Content: Heather Grave takes off with a mix of doom, dark-ambient and metal music. It creates a hostile atmosphere, which is reinforced by growls. The songs also feature piano arrangements.
Frozen Ocean moves on featuring 2 cuts, which are more into dark-ambient music. There’s a twist between dreamy passages and anguishing parts. The second cut also has something psychedelic and rock-like.
+ + + : Both projects took care to elaborate their work. All songs are progressively evolving, moving over the 7 minutes. From Heather Grave I especially like “The Hunger Constellation” for the wider sonic canvas. I also enjoyed both cuts by Frozen Ocean, which are more diversified, but a bit contradictory. It’s fascinating to see the fusion between evasive- and cold parts. Last, but not least I also like the artwork and especially the front cover, which has something menacing.
– – – : Split albums aren’t maybe the most interesting productions when it comes to sales while it also concerns two rather unknown projects.
Conclusion: This album has the merit to let us discover two projects from the Russian experimental/ambient scene.
Best songs: “The Hunger Constellation” (Heather Grave), “Cities Dying In Me” (Frozen Ocean).
Rate: (6½).
Artists: http://frozen–ocean.net / www.facebook.com/frozenoceanrus
Label: www.spectralhalls.net
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I have been working for over 30 years with Side-line as the main reviewer. My taste is eclectic, uncoventional and I prefer to look for the pearls, even if the bands are completely unknown, thus staying loyal to the Side-Line philosophy of nurturing new talents.
