ETHEREAL SHROUD

 

Origen: U.K., Sheffield

Formados: 2013

Estilo: Black depresivo, funeral doom

Temtaica: Atrocidades de las religiones, miedo a la muerte y soledad

Enlaces: Bandcamp, deezer, facebook y spotify

Miembros:

• Joe Hawker Todo

Discografía:

• Absolution|Emptiness Demo 2013  
• They Became the Falling Ash CD 2015
• Lanterns Single 2020  
• Trisagion CD 2021
• Albums 1-3 Recopilatorio 2022
• Lanterns Single 2022

TRISAGION (2021)

Estamos ante el segundo lanzamiento de esta one man band inglesa que por otra parte ha recibido un número importante de buenas críticas desde su lanzamiento a pesar de ser un álbum que puede llegar a ser complejo en ciertas facetas. Un álbum de cuarto temas y de casi ochenta minutos de duración, no esta hecho para ser de consumo rápido y espontaneo y mucho menos cuando logra sumergirnos en su atmosfera perfectamente construida que nos trasporta a un estado de soledad y desazón repleta de intensidad. Un álbum en que Joe logra crear unas intros repletas de melancolía, construidas tanto por secciones de teclados o guitarras limpias que poco a poco aumentan de intensidad hasta lograr explotar cuando hacen acto de aparición tanto batería, como voces y guitarra en forma de un abrasivo y perturbador sonido que se entreteje en estilos como un black de tintes depresivos, repleto de atmósferas tristes y de soledad, como por influencias doom. La extensión de los temas permite que estos puedan ofrecer diferentes intensidades y sensaciones a lo largo de los mismos, cuando la intensidad esta en su punto álgido Joe logra mantener una atmosfera desoladora del todo presente sin renunciar a riffs acompasados que van añadiendo aspectos de melodía son renunciar a la desolación que trasmite este álbum, sin embargo también podemos asistir a secciones más lentas en todo el conjunto que funcionan a modo de catalizador de la intensidad desprendida en el álbum. Un álbum tanto inmenso como inmersivo que transita por un black que logra ofrecer un apartado de desolación, soledad y tristeza, con cuidadas secciones atmosféricas y en donde el sonido desprende un aroma a melancolía. (7,7).

Northern Silence Productions

1. Chasmal Fires 27:47

  How wise the God who trades his son for lesser men

Who seek no temple, only avarice and permanence

Judge not the heart, but thy devotion

Keep those who remain

As close to salvation as to destitution

I can't explain what it means to be whole

You took that virtue away from me

A kingdom adorned with the thorns of thy idol

Who scorn the breath of truth and reason

We cannot pretend

That the rules are the same

For the blasphemer and the saint, the blasphemer and the saint

We cannot pretend

That the rules are the same

For the commoner and the priest, the commoner and the priest

The toils I've endured are so far beyond meaning

There is no greater voice, only tenets and blood-stained stones

Your archaism dies this day

You are but the shadow of a lie

Feeble and brittle like silence

Bending the fear of earnest held faith

You took the world from us

From cracked and sullen hands

As hope slipped through our fingers

And sank beneath the sands

Fire sows the fire

Wrath rends retribution

Effigies casting shadows

Likening tyrants to deities

Befelling monuments

To prove hence from this day

What's written in stone

Can crumble to dust

To what end was I made this way

If my nature is a transgression

I cannot build myself up again

To watch myself fall apart at the seams

I cannot walk if I'm destined to fall

Through trials by design of cruelty and hate

You are so frail

You hide behind your fear

Your faith is a mask for your insecurity

And you wield it like a sword

Summoning the flood, the call of the raging seas

Apollyon's wake before the world

We ache, we fear and we suffer for naught

Undue and unjust is the the folly of Christ

Transient echoes from a long lost era

Cannot conceive my fate

I suffer the want for a better world

And the need for compassion in terrible times

Great is my weakness to punish myself for

A love forbidden by those who bore me

Behind the weight of this cage of bones

Is a heart that sinks at the sights of greed

Of a Lord who damns his beloved creation

For sins he determined his sons to commit

I cannot pretend

That I am the same

As I once was

As I once was

If dreams lie in tatters

And a soul knows no purpose

What can I hope for

What can I live for

There was a time where

I could forgive

But I've lost so much

So fucking much

I hate that I hate

As it brings me closer to you

I am not what I am

I am not what I am

I am so lost in this place

These vast surroundings compel me to dread

As I sink within myself

Forging an irrepassable path

I can't regret what I feel is just

I am one with the sword you held to me

Reflection in the steel

I am not what I am

Forged and contorted

I am what I am

Forged and contorted

2. Discarnate 13:54

I lost myself in fear of the unknown An enigmatic constant of a cold malignant form To rise within me as a rush of boiling blood I seethe at the sight of your face But it might as well be a mirror Unyielding... I cannot contend with the instinct to hate my fellow man for his nature Who are we to justify these means if the end is counting the dead? Within ourselves is the choice to love or hate To use one's faith as an impetus for scorn or a guiding hand To cast light with it or cast a solemn curse I chose to suffer Without form, without remorse We are alone I am not afraid to fall I am not my fears Humanity's weakness is a curse to carry with grace But it will not be my ruin Within ourselves is the choice to love or hate To use one's faith as an impetus for scorn or a guiding hand To cast light with it or cast a solemn curse I chose to rise We are one You are nothing Absolve yourself of your pain You are stronger than your oppressor Their insecurity Will be your triumph As the fire burns Creating smoldering ruins Bring righteous light Bring righteous hope Within ourselves is the choice to love or hate To use one's faith as an impetus for scorn or a guiding hand To cast light with it or cast a solemn curse I chose to stand Only the weak would let fear rule their hand Only the frail would hate their fellow man Without form, without sight, without light You govern mind and man In your discarnate form, your influence has guided hands To wield swords with wrath If I alone can see your futility Then you see it yourself I am stronger than I was years before From when I knelt before you 

3. Astral Mariner 22:34

  Movement...

I'm asleep in a fog

That nothing can cut through

The constant of time standing ever still

Waters pristine, oar rippling stars

An endless expanse

Empyreal mirror

What is this light

Piercing heaven's sky

I cannot see

I cannot see

If only I knew

What this weatherworn face would see

I'd have set sail for another shore

These seas tumultuous and merciless

Those sent to guide me only drove me deeper into storms

Beset into defeat, gripped by paralysis

Pumelled by relentless rains of doubt and despair

Despite the weight of it all

I'm not sure if I felt it at all

And as I sank like a stone

I feared too much to ask of you

To reach down and pull me in

Or to turn away and let me go

Leave me here

I'm the only one I trust

Not to deepen these wounds

Cast me adrift

I'm safer alone

I can guide myself home

Wherever that may be

Why am I so numb

To the terrors I've seen

To the pains I've felt

To the fear I've known?

Countless in number they are

They say they are my strength

But each scar is a weight

Pulling me further

Each make me sink

Forlorn visions of bygone times are lost in the swell

Reality's rawness is lost to the daze

Bring me sleep

You are lost but I have found my own place

In this maladjusted world we call our home

I hid in the stars

I conjured a world

I made my escape

You cannot hurt me here

I longed for the same as you

But I'm at peace now

Whatever story they tell of me

Through the lens of misjudgment

Means nothing to me here

With doors open wide

Come find me

4. Lanterns 13:37

 What answer do you have in sorrow's wake

But to abandon all beheldest dear

Time ever longer in the coldest night

Withdrawn behind my mind's enclosure

It is kinder to accept one's nature

Than to inflict unto others your poisons

It is kinder to be destitute

Without a light to carry through the fog

If I held up a light, you would see me unravel before your eyes

Embittered and distanced, embers barely holding the glow

To tremble at the thought of one more day

Distant lanterns glow in the mist

Their warmth all but alien to my skin

Longing fingers grasp at the golden glow

But are soon pulled in from the burning heat

Back to a chest as cold as a shadow

Its familiarity a comfort as well as defeat

Take what is lost, gather what's left astray

Husk of a beating heart, clinging to a namesake

Still are the waters that flow throw the veins

Waiting for the warmth of a fire I keep far away

Lucidity grants me with certainty that this will pass

But oh so distant is the hour

And far beyond reaching is the world I have undone

This empty path bears not the answers that I seek

There is no solace here

Your distant warmth will return to me

As soon as I let you in

When the darkness lays down arms

Bring light

For mine wanes before the day

  01:17:52