Empusae - Ritual Decay -- sub.session records

Following up the excellent debut release "Funestus", Empusae's new EP "Ritual Decay", from Toronto label sub.session records (a label that is proving to be a real force in the genre), will leave you with an haunting eerie feeling. Starting out with a bit of a noisy drone; screams, whispers, and noisier darker elements are varied with classical and atmospheric parts.The EP features five tracks of material from an earlier Empusae recorded between 1995 and 2001, and eight remixes from some of the most prominent names in the rhythmic noise genre including Sonar, Synapscape, Ah Cama-Sotz, This Morn' Omina; and some of the rising names such as Displacer, Prospero, s:cage and Flint Glass.Simply put, I think Empusae makes beautiful music. There is a sad sorrow here, with an almost bone-chilling disturbing atmosphere that really catches you. While samples speak of being "damned in hell with Lucifer", I somehow don't feel that this damning would be unpleasant. But maybe I'm just a weird girl who likes dark, bleak music around me. Okay, yeah, I am. Not that this release is dull (as I don't mean "bleak" in a negative way). Gloomy melodies with rhythmic beats raise and tumble your spirits as you close your eyes and become consumed, lost even, in the pleasing sound.A perfect release for Halloween.The remixes offer a nice cross section of sounds from the creepiness of Ah Cama-Sotz to the more upbeat rhythms of This Morn' Omina.As an EP, I first thought this CD would be relatively short… but it just keeps going. How wonderful. Just when I think, "Wow, this has been on for a while, it must be almost done…", I look and see "Hey, there are still 5 tracks left!"

Although it's hard to choose favourite tracks, as I quite enjoy each one, these catch my attention currently: Beauty of Decay, Dark Alchemy remix by Ah Cama-Sotz, Tenebris for the Unborn remix by s:cage, and Home Pig remix by Synapscape.

-- October 2003

 

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