Split Review: Psychonaut / Sâver - Emerald (2021)
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| Picture Credit: Pelagic Records |
Psychonaut / Sâver - Emerald
Release Date: May 14, 2021
Label: Pelagic Records
Format: Vinyl / Digital
Length: 35:40 (16:30 + 19:10)
Genre: Doom Metal / Post Metal
Origin: Mechelen, Belgium / Oslo, Norway
Wrapped in luscious green, this Split EP is huge - not only since with 35 minutes of duration, this is EP is longer than many full-length full-length releases. Nevertheless, if you know the featured artists, you have encountered how likely they are to produce musical pieces that last at least ten minutes. And thus here we are, exploring the atmospheric sonic journey lead by Mechelen's Psychonaut and Oslo's Sâver.
A-Side:
Psychonaut - The Great Realisation
The Belgian band provides us with a sixteen-minute opus of minimalism, apocalyptic scenery, and various moods. The Psychedelic Doom narrative consists of five chapters. A nameless protagonist awakens from their self-righteous dream, realizing that humankind has screwed with their home planet for far too long. Hence, inner conflicts, doubts, and deconstruction of the self and the individuum follow. The narrative is loaded with questions on humankind, the potential of a collective working together, and the ambivalent role of individualism between egocentricsm and common weal.
Music-wise, the A-Side is defined by Psychonaut playing doom-ridden and highly psychedelic Post Metal. Despite the band's minimalist approach, the music is very versatile due to plentiful themes and motifs reaching from classic Doom over Alternative Metal until massive Post Metal.
B-Side:
Sâver - Dimensions Lost / Obscured by Aeons
For Spotify, those two tracks have been separated. Honestly,I think they belong together which is why the whole EP was added to the MangoRotation playlist.
Sâver explore the deep and unknown space between extremes. Dichotomies like light and darkness, love and hate, life and death, create spaces between them that are loaded with tension, eerie atmosphere, and fascination. Despite this space being the environment in which most of our lives seems to take place, it is the space we hardly know anything about. It is a huge void created by dissonances that sensual creates try to fill with meaningless elements. Sâver nevertheless, are the pilots steering their sonic vessel into the heart of that void, discovering its secrets.
This deep dive is musicked by psychedelic and progressive Doom Metal. "Dimensions Lost" is a deeply atmospheric synthie opener that aquaints the audience with the hollow space that they are about to encounter. Following, "Obscured by Aeons" is an eleven-minute Doom and Post Metal banger.
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| Picture Credit: Pelagic Records |
Summing up, "Emerald" is an absolutely stunning release of apocalpytic, psychedelic, and heavy music. Both bands masterly re-invent elements of Doom, Sludge and Post Metal, and create a unique zeitgeist document.
Content from the MangoReviews will always stay in the MangoRotation playlist for 14 days
Psychonaut Online:
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Sâver Online:
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