Relapse Records’ Unearthly Trance haven’t released anything for seven years, but 2017s ‘Stalking The Ghost’, their sixth full length, promises to make up for lost time and reposition them as doom/sludge gods once more.
The album launches in with a wickedly pulsating beat that drives towards the vocal section, the screamed vocals ghastly in all the good ways. With a reputation as one of the best doom artists on the block, Unearthly Trance have, with ‘Stalking The Ghost’, exceeded the limits of their genre and experimented with more scaled back sections, haunting vocal only sections, before the punishing beat of opening track ‘Into The Spiral’ returns to smash you a new one and the hugely eerie sections of ‘Lion Strength’ that feel like the devil is whispering in your ears.
The cacophony of feedback is not new to Unearthly Trance but it seems so much more intense on their latest effort: an almost unbearable heaviness. The mood setting is turned up to eleven on ‘Scythe’, which is fully instrumental up to nearly the 2 minute mark, before the song takes a double headed turn, first towards aggression through Ryan Lipynsky’s vocal delivery but also through a wall of blistering guitar and unrelentingly infectious and sludgy riff work. The album feels demonic, and seems like the perfect offering to the occult, which Unearthly Trance are historically famous for musing over in their music.
The excellently named ‘Invisible Butchery’ has a brutal vocal section, the slower pace of this track by no means reducing its vigour or effectiveness. The result is an utterly terrifying ode to doom and black metal, the bass trance-like in its delivery and intensity. ‘Famine’ explores a more mellow approach with vocals that float over you like mist over an early morning lake. Lipynsky screams “save your soul” but, honestly, after listening to this release, it’s far too late for that.
This album is epic in all proportions. Most songs top out at the eight-minute mark which then begins to make this eight track album seem much larger and monumental than perhaps the short track list would have you believe.
Indeed the meat of the album, particularly the intricate guitar work in ‘Lion Strength’ and ‘In The Forests Keep’ highlight the musical journey of this band. Particularly in the latterly mentioned, the guitar work evokes a young Kirk Hammett, the repetition and static feedback ramping up the tension and atmosphere. When the song finally reaches its peak, there is an uncomfortable, almost brown noise feel to the piece, providing a fitting end to a hauntingly brilliant, and reimagined Unearthly Trance.
DAVID BULL