Kildonan (UK) - Embers
Digital download
https://pestproductions.bandcamp.com/album/embers
This album is dedicated to all who lost their homes during the Highland Clearances.
Verses and verses of fates entwined, residues of a Past Fargone and countless names vaporized with It -- return now, gushing down in gritty sanguine, when the cruel rays of the Highland Sun claim yet another soul, from the wound the womb of the slain. Henceforth marks the land one more time: verses, names, spells, loves, and fears of yore; reinforcing the pact and equilibrium made between all forefathers and the denizens spectral. Let this Blood and its trails awaken in you the same reverence, in the same tongue, as the Astur-Rays cast their feathered shadows upon your soul, howling above, while this soil Scorched and Ashened.
Invoking a grandiose atmosphere only native to the Scottish Highlands and their mantled fog: dense, stern, desolate, Kildonan’s debut full-length stands as one of the best European BM releases from last year. Born from the ashes of Vostok, Kildonan inherited the mesmerizing melodism of its former self, combining traces of dissonance from their more avant-garde-leaning colleagues (Haar), while structured within the atmospheric aesthetics forged by UKBM pioneers like Wodensthrone and Whiterfylleth -- all crystalized in the eerily wistful soundscape of Embers. Underlying each chord and screech and chant is an inscrutable pain shining far away, yet at times so intimate, as if shrouded by your heart and its pounding. Pure beauty is what it is.