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Sempiternal Dusk – Sempiternal Dusk

Sep 27 • Reviews, The Slumbering Ent • 2577 Views • No Comments on Sempiternal Dusk – Sempiternal Dusk

Dipankar Mohanty reviews the debut self-titled from Sempiternal Dusk, released via Dark Descent Records.

I’m going to look at this from two ways – one, from the view of a standalone entity and two, use my experienced ear in order to determine if this has that certain punch to stop my heartbeat for a second or two. In the last decade, the ‘bestial’ black/death genre has been a victim of repetitiveness. The genre remains cocooned in its own sanctuary, except for a few who have ventured outside its set boundaries like Adversarial, Portal and Mitochondrion. Apart from those few bands which remain in a minority, the rest have been riding on the waves of the cavernous low-fi production and constant riffing pattern that form the base of every other black/death album. Hence, musically it will always be a genre with a limited scope to grow and will certainly put off listeners who expect more energy and dynamism in riffing and songwriting. However, the good thing that it does, albeit for a brief period of time is manage to fit and subsequently entangle the listener into its one dimensional pattern. It doesn’t happen very often but sometimes it definitely does.

<a href="http://darkdescentrecords.bandcamp.com/album/sempiternal-dusk">Sempiternal Dusk by Sempiternal Dusk</a>

Sempiternal Dusk play mid-tempo black/death built upon the unwavering pattern of doom. The end result is a doomy form of black/death with no deviations from its course similar to 13th Moon’s ‘Abhorrence of Light’. The first thing that’s going to hit the ears is the monstrous wall of sound. The production is great with all instruments rearing out their heads equally. Moon Beneath Hook Cross gets things off to a promising start with a riff sequence till 2:45 which then leads to the main song. This particular song and Upon the Gallows of Perihelion are the highlights of the album for me. Moon Beneath Hook Cross then runs along a mid tempo pattern changing slightly in the middle, and then moving to another sustained sequence for the remainder of the song. Upon the Gallows of Perihelion is more of the same thing but manages to shuffle things a bit by inserting an atmospheric background at about 7:35. The song ends with a melodic undertone as well. I would have been happy with the above mentioned songs forming the album. Those slight ripples on an otherwise flat surface break the monotony a little bit, otherwise the remaining 20 odd minutes is cut from the same cloth. Summing up, we have that mid tempo tremolo riffing sustained and repeating over a long duration, we have slight changes in the mix on occasions and we have that typical cavernous atmosphere driven by the production that is typical of bands residing deep within the territory of Dark Descent Records. All these ingredients will probably make hardcore black/death fans salivate keeping in mind that the only objective of Sempiternal Dusk was to create an atmosphere based on a foundation of doom-based repeating black/death pattern. So if one were to look at it as just an individual entity shunning out other quality releases of the past, then it might hit hard. It’s worth repeating that this applies more to fans who really are in love with the genre. But, if one were to bring in some great prior experiences from different genres, the aura diminishes a bit. So, the somewhat critical fans who demand more from their metal will not. Having said that; this is not by any means a bad debut, but at the same time it leaves a lot of room for inculcating some tempo changes and expansion of pre-set boundaries, that is if the band wants to go in that direction.