Locrian‘s drone/shoegaze/doom masterpiece “The Clearing & Final Epoch” is one of the reasons why this genre, or mix of genres, is so damn good. When I first popped in the album from the Chicago based band, I wasn’t even in the mood for ultra slow, drone music. However, the carefully written and epic sounding album sucked me in immediately and I was hooked for the rest of the 1.5 hours of music they had to offer. Very slow, very gloomy, like Nadja and Sunn 0))), the music is quite ominous and unsettling. My imagination runs wild when I listen to this album. Feelings of being trapped in a cold, dark basement or sitting in an extremely thick foggy forest area in the middle of the night…with nothing but the moon light shining down on me. “The Clearing & Final Epoch” is one hell of an album and fans of this genre or this sound will absolutely love this and they should flock to their local stores and pick up a copy. It’s that good.
The music itself creates amazing atmosphere and tells stories without even having lyrics being told to you. The vocals are a rarity, they are on the first song but then after that they are damn near absent from the rest of the album. The words being sang you can’t interpret anyways as they are pretty much howled in a weird sung tone. The manner of the writing on this album reminds me of a horror flick DVD main menu, that creepy bleak music that just repeats itself until you choose to play the movie or watch deleted scenes. The music made me feel so many different things throughout the listening of this. I felt like I was trapped within a nightmare at times, many bad scenario’s went through my mind. Dreary tunes and faint screams will do that to you, especially if you are as imaginative as I am.
Locrian doesn’t let you listen to the music, you experience it. Like I said earlier, this album put me in the mood for drone when I wasn’t ready for it and not only that, it satisfied me when all is said and done. This album is majestic, it’s massive and it’s one hell of a trip. Very ambient, very atmosheric with no real riffing or structure for that matter…yet being carefully constructed and unorthodox enough to make it all come together and sounds absolutely breathtaking. One of those sleeper albums you’ll have zero expectancy for and it will completely blow you away.
Listen to Locrian’s “The Clearing & Final Epoch“, you’ll thank me, them and yourself for doing so. This will be one of those over looked albums for sure, but anyone who listen’s to this album will agree…it’s amazing.
5 out of 5