Artist: Archer / Skelm
Title: Split
Type: Album
Label: Digital / Fogged Entity
I had come across Archer before this split of course so I was very keen to hear this and bought it in the latest drop from the remarkable Fogged Entity label. Skelm was a new name to me but a quick hunt through the tangle of the internet genuinely intrigued me with the old school, very black metal rooted visuals. And of course its always interesting to see how a split works.
We open with five tracks from Archer. ‘No Fate’ is about as old school as you can get – that dark and primordial live played synth sounds and lo-fi production just pulling you down into the dungeon. It’s slow, ponderous, wary music as though a novice adventurer set out on their first steps into the depths. ‘Bound To Sorrow Laden Plight’ has a fuller sound, a slow rising synth, the tap of cymbals, the pulse of drums and the dark, ominous drone of the synths. When the melody comes it is rich but sinister….and then the howls come and we ride into a storm of writhing black metal which slowly recoils into the shadows and a doomed, dismal feel. Its as though a spirit lashed out on waking and then regroups to more focus their anger. It was, I admit, a surprise after the first track but this is so good, fits so well, flowing from depressive black metal to dungeon synth and that magical world in between.
‘Frost Be Born’ is that slowly rising whisper of mythical and pure dungeon synth. There is an almost brittle feel to the edge of the sound here as it pulses and snaps. Vocals come, slowly but against the DS sound they add a sense of narration, of scene painting in keeping with the beautiful melodic feel. A touch of goth is in the clean vocals at the end too. ‘Cracks Across The Sky’ opens with the rich, awe struck sound; dark ambient landscapes, head tilted upwards perhaps and bathing in the sights as prickles of light begin to appear in the darkness, choral voices, faint, and strange sounds like a nail across glass as the crack lengthens, splits but perhaps not widens. An aurora from the other side. Gorgeous.
The final Archer contribution is ‘Echoes Across Athanatos’ which once more has that skin tingling, rising sound that flows between dark ambient and dungeon synth with the spirit of Vangelis there just watching as we push into the kind of heart aching black metal of very early Fen and Fellwarden. A place to watch the land unfold…
Skelm enters with a folk violin sound, a lament of ‘Forsaken Sanguine’ with that dugoen synth pulse behind which takes the melody on. Little runs of deeper notes in the background and the timpani sound swells us into an epic medieval fantasy sound. I am weirdly reminded of an echo of Game Of Thrones theme here, just a touch, as we slowly turn in entwined circles of keyboard and violin sounds. It fits so well following on from Archer, a step in a different pathway but still within sight of each other. ‘Harbinger Of Doom (Revisited)’ is once more bursting with a need to set an epic, but dark and singular tale. The arrangement here is just perfect; drums pushing the slow rise of power and the synths spiraling up the tempo until…halt. And then it begins once more but somehow darker, more sombre. I am lost inside this by now. Skelm have well and truly introduced themselves.
‘Chasm Gateways’ brings a stranger energy. The rhythm at first is almost urgent though the synths seem to try and keep the reigns as though there is a pull at work, a light beckoning with an offering of some kind if our feet follow its subtle dance. And for the first time I find myself thinking how this would sound live. There is a thread of prog here too I feel, nothing all consuming just a breath of it through the strands.
The split closes with Skelm’s ‘Ephemeral Dreams’. A piano sound dominates, once more that prog feel picking its delightful way through the clean clear sylvan melody as the synth backdrop assures us that we have overcome our trials. For the moment.
This is a fantastic split between two like minded musicians but with enough difference in their approaches to make the split feel like a work in itself. I knew the talent of Archer and this simply raised my belief in them and their movement bewteen DS, black metal and dark ambient. Skelm, though have introduced themselves to me in a perfect manner with the lightly prog flavoured dungeon synth with a curious hint of the natural world to them even amidst the sombre tones. And so now I have to investigate them further.
Just a superb example of a split and what it can do.
Gizmo
Walking The Liminal Space 