Among the legions of atmospheric, introspective black metal bands that emerged over the last decade, Ashbringer has made some of the most powerful and thought-provoking music in their class. I was a big fan of their second album, Yūgen, and it’s great to see how far they’ve progressed since then. Decibel is therefore proud to present Subglacial, their album due out on February 13 via Bölverk Collective.
It’s an album filled with flowing blasts, dramatic rises and falls, and all shades of longing and indignation. It’s an aggressive listen for sure, but one that reaches deep caverns of the soul. “Waning Conviction” is particularly striking, and songs like the title track reward listeners with unique blends of styles and moods.
According to the band:
“Our modus operandi of this record was as follows: we’re going to make the most ‘us’ sounding record we possibly can, and we’re going to do it completely in house, with gear we already have, without spending any money. Every step of the process was done in the home studio in the house Andy and I rented for one year that we’ve since moved out of (and into our permanent home base and Ashbringer HQ).”
They go on to say that:
“Since our previous effort, We Came Here to Grieve, was wildly experimental and all over the place sonically from track to track, we wanted to take the opposite approach this time and make something super consistent sounding that mostly stuck to our core live arrangements of guitars, bass, drums and vocals.
This record was also the first time we spent a lot of time rehearsing the record as a full band instead of mostly developing the ideas in the DAW, so it’s the first time we feel like we accurately captured the intensity of our live performances in record form. I mixed and mastered it to very carefully preserve and emphasize all the transients and dynamics that we captured, allowing for a lot of breathing room and ebbs and flows throughout the listening experience.”
It’s a great way to go about things, as it preserves a certain vitality that can be lost when cutting and pasting everything together.
Listen to the album below, you can find preorder information on the band’s Bandcamp page.
The post Full Album Stream: Ashbringer – <i>Subglacial</i> appeared first on Decibel Magazine.