Talst – Celestial Displacement (Album – Winter-Light)

Genre/Influences: Dark-Ambient, Cinematic.
Format: Digital, CD.
Background/Info: This is the debut-album by Chicago (USA)-based artist Rob Meldrum. The work features ten tracks and was released by the very last days of 2023.
Content: Talst brings an obscure work which totally matches with Dark-Ambient standards. Deep, growling sounds and low, vibrating, sound waves are leading the listener into a freaky fantasy world which can be now and then accentuated by heavy, blasting, sound treatments.
+ + + : I like the way the tracks have been progressively built up. The deep, sound waves accentuate the anguishing sphere hanging over the work and which has a great impact at the debut tracks. There however is another noticeable cut right at the last part entitled “Stasis”. This cut is boosted by overwhelming sound blasts.
– – – : This is an encouraging and promising debut-album which is just missing a real, true, apotheosis.
Conclusion: Talst has found the right platform at Winter-Light to contaminate Dark-Ambient lovers by imaginary horror themes.
Best songs: “Stasis”, “Proximity”, “Inertia”, “Disengage”.
Rate: 7.
Label: www.winter-light.nl / www.facebook.com/winter.light.1
Listen to “Celestial Displacement”:
About Talst
Talst is the dark ambient project of Chicago, USA-based sound artist Rob Meldrum. “Celestial Displacement” is his debut album under the Talst name, released on Winter-Light on 19 January 2024 as a glass-mastered CD in a six-panel digi-file limited to 300 copies, with mastering by Ronald Marien (Stratosphere) and artwork by Abby Helasdottir. The ten-track album includes “Proximity”, “Sundering”, “Inertia”, “Intersect”, “Entropy”, “Disengage”, “Retrograde”, “Stasis”, “Triangulate” and “Incubate”. Meldrum followed it with a second Talst album, “Sewn Into The Infinite Sky”, released on Winter-Light in January 2026.
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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.
