Portland’s Aldebaran have had quite the prolific career thus far, in what has been a fairly short amount of time. Having formed in 2004 Aldebaran have consistently produced some of the most intoxicating and downtrodden funeral death doom this side of diSEMBOWELMENT and Asunder, yet they have only released one full length in their time together. Besides the many splits the band have to their name and a lauded EP from last year (Buried Beneath Aeons), Aldebaran now stand on the precipice of a new release. Embracing The Lightless Depths is wondrously majestic and the two twenty five minute plus tracks committed to this record are surrounded by three graceful passages which envelope the album in a sheen of mystical splendour.
Sweet and gently struck notes usher the melancholic dawn of Embracing The Lightless Depths, slowly giving way to distorted and electricity-laden strikes of guitar. “Occultation of Hali’s Gates” hits deeply with an embedded gloom, lacing the record with a knowledge of the deep-seated despair to come. Pouring into “Forever In The Dream Of Death” seamlessly, Aldebaran waste no time in pulling the atmosphere through shades of dusk and misery. Measured and processional beats cut the air, thick with dense and deliberate funereal tones. The almost fathomless vocal hits with crashing precision, striking in the hollows of the soul and each instrumental element is given space to coil and surround with a monolithic power. Moments of calm permeate the twilight offsetting the moving and commanding builds to exaltation. Rolling drum beats pound with an almost militaristic essence before sliding back to make room for husky breaths of doom.
Aldebaran take flashes of peaceful magnificence and counter them with depth and a sensation of hypnotic beauty. Horror lies veiled in echoing caverns of bass and subterranean roars and shadowy whispers. Embracing The Lightless Depths is a journey into the abyssal yawning pits of a vast universe. Aldebaran’s affecting and altogether destructive force is consistently compelling; the extended running time of each track holds natural progression and sublimely concealed chaos bleeds through the snarls of sludge and dirt during “Sentinel Of A Sunless Abyss.” Segueing into the final instrumental piece, “Occultation Of Dim Carcosa,” Embracing The Lightless Depths closes on a droning and soft pulse. Reminiscent of the opening work, the tender breeze of grief works through the tranquility opposing the depressive strength of the two colossal tracks.
In a cosmic sense, Aldebaran is one of the brightest stars in the known sky. Here the aptly named band burns through celestial clouds of devastation and ruin, seizing each lamentable instant and crushing with a potent authority.
Embrace the lightless depths.
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