vote
5.5
- Band:
XASTHUR - Duration: 00:44:57
- Available from: 05/07/2024
- Label:
-
Lupus Lounge
Streaming not yet available
After last year's total misstep, it's hard to approach a new Xasthur album without having, at the very least, some prejudice. If not total terror.
Starting from the positive notes, this time Scott has spared us a new, overflowing mastodon of infinite duration. Then, he must certainly be recognized for his extreme ability in choosing the titles of his works, because the contents of this album are decidedly “Disharmonic Variations”; thirteen chapters that constitute an intimate diary that is not exactly linear and harmonious, which, while fully incorporating the essentiality and minimalism of the previous release, returns to transmit to us vaguely a part of the suffering inner world of the Californian artist, full of discomfort and madness. As you may have guessed from the vote, he is not claimed to be a miracle; and if you had lost passion for his unfriendly production even back when he was still the Artist formerly known as Malefic, consider sufficiency even further away. It is always difficult to understand whether or not our artist has recovered some focus on his intentions and, what is no less important, whether he still thinks of music according to the criterion of the song form; or rather as a collage of emotions, sensations, suggestions. Of course, even just three quarters of an hour of pure instrumental fragments are not exactly a mouth-watering result, and that feeling persists that Xasthur can only be loved or hated, with no middle ground, with an increasingly clear percentage of listeners siding with the second part. Above all because it is easy to feel fooled by what, starting from the two extremes of his production, has become the new synthesis of him: live fragments, but which compared to the past remain very sketchy; black metal moments more in intentions and in the hint of a poorly concealed fury, than in the sound; and above all many, many acoustic and twelve-string guitars that outline, if nothing else, a glimmer of sincere intimacy.
Here, if we don't completely sink this new chapter, it's because, even without any particular spark, and a fair amount of effort to get to the end, the subdued sounds, the lowered tones and that general mood of depression that had made Xasthur an original and relevant voice, somehow peep out here. But we will hardly grant other 'encouraging' pats on the back to his next releases, hunting for buried impressions. And perhaps disappeared.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM