Bands all over are taking the lo fi angle way too fucking seriously. While the lack of funds and of being taken seriously served the originators foster a languid sound that would perfectly match their lowbrow aspirations, the lo fi approach shall not be abused by bands that stylistically speaking, aspire to illustrate grand ideas. It is to say, that if you are going to go balls out hysterical black metal, your metal can lack all heaviness and the recording needs not have depth, but if you are going to slowly creep in our asses via more thoughtfully constructed and well-layered music, you might as well serve a rounded out multi dimensional sound with more potent atmospherics.
That’s the first idea that comes to mind once the first track “L’Age D ’Or” breaks out of its atmospherics and reveals itself as almost necrotic black metal. It is also the second idea that comes to mind once we get into these blank echoy spaces in “Render Null and Void”. It is nice. But the idea is nicer.
It is not that Extraños Dias de Pandra deserves a million dollar production. It is just that a tad more clarity and power in the recording would have served it well. It would have given more dimension to music that has clearly been thought out.
This necessity is less urgent in sicker more straight forward black metal material. There is a long stretch between a song titled “L’Age D’Or” and a song titled “Behest of Mayhemic Buzz”. The latter as it should, thrashes around wildly, very high on the highs and no low on the lows. Here, once you’ve gotten used to, the recording quality bothers less. And by the time we roll into the last track of the first side, “This Peaceful Aroma”, we are treated to pure experimental music. If only Brian Eno would have known it would all come down to this.
Kavra is a one man piece from the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico. Apparently, at one point Kavra was a full line-up band and their acid sound of today is a high contrast to the doom sludge they used to play. Now, totally dominated by an individual going by the name of Henriiz, Kavra must be boxed in the unclassifiable realm of experimental music.
The second side of this tape goes through a very nice phase during “Raving Fanatical to the Dire”. The track is a full black metal assault, but the middle is corrupted by this jazzy atmosphere. Uncomfortable we shall mention. More importantly, there are no jazzy patterns per se, just the idea that Henriiz has weirder, and hopefully better recorded, shit brewing.
Official Site
Wohrt Records
