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Year of No Light to Release Consolamentum on Pelagic Records July 2

year of no light

Well that’s a pretty heavy 12-minute single you’ve got there, Year of No Light. The Bordeaux-based six-piece haven’t issued a full-length since they gave the Vampyr score a once-over in 2013, and to herald the coming of Consolamentum, the band have revealed “Réalgar,” a post-metallic instrumental soundscaper that’s suitably big on atmosphere and impact without losing itself entirely to either. The new album will be their first for Pelagic, and it comes as they mark their 20th anniversary as a band, also releasing a new limited box set that is nothing if not extensive. You know bands are giving it their all when they put the slipmat along with 12 platters in the hand-silkscreened wood box.

What’s really enticing about “Réalgar” — aside from that synth line running beneath the airy guitars — is how short it makes that 12 minutes seem. Didn’t we just set out on this journey, Year of No Light? And already we’re dissolving into gorgeous ambience? They do spend the last couple minutes in that swirl, but don’t be fooled by the lack of drums, there’s still plenty of substance to the proceedings.

Cool beans. (That’s probably something no one else will say about this track, so there. Thanks for reading.) You’ll find the details for the box and Consolamentum below, courtesy of the PR wire:

year of no light consolamentum

Year of No Light announce Consolamentum album and 20th anniversary box set

Bordeaux, FR post-metal sextet joins Pelagic Records w/ heaviest album to date

Bordeaux, France post-metal sextet Year of No Light announce their forthcoming fifth studio album Consolamentum today, sharing the first single “Réalgar” via all DSPs. Hear and share “Réalgar” via Bandcamp, Spotify and YouTube.

Consolamentum is the band’s first album on Pelagic Records. To celebrate joining the label and Year of No Lights’s 20th anniversary, they will release a limited edition deluxe wooden box set of the band’s entire discography, titled Mnemophobia on July 2nd. The handmade, hand-silkscreened wooden box features 12 vinyl LPs in 6 gatefold sleeves, exclusive colored vinyl variants, a slipmat, metal pin, patch and poster. For more information, see HERE: https://pelagic-records.com/product/year-of-no-light-mnemophobia-wooden-lp-boxset/

Year of No Light’s lengthy, sprawling compositions of towering walls of guitars and sombre synths irradiate a sense of dire solemnity and spiritual gravity, and couldn’t be a more fitting soundtrack for such grim medieval scenarios. But there is also the element of absolution, regeneration, elevation, transcendence in the face of death. Consolamentum is dense, rich and lush and yet somehow feels starved and deprived.

It comes as no surprise that ever since the beginning of their career, the band have had an obsession for the fall of man and salvation through darkness. The term “consolamentum” describes the sacrament, the initiation ritual of the Catharic Church, which thrived in Southern Europe in the 12th – 14th Century – a ritual that brought eternal austereness and immersion in the Holy Spirit.

“There’s a thread running through all of our albums”, says the band, collectively “an exploration of the sensitive world that obeys a certain telos, first fantasized (“Nord”) and reverberated (“Ausserwelt”), then declaimed as a warning (“Tocsin”). The deeper we dig, the more the motifs we have to unveil appear to us. Yes, it’s a bit gnostic. This album is invoked after the Tocsin, it’s the epiphany of the Fall.”

With debut album Nord (2006) and sophomore release Ausserwelt (2010), the band made themselves a name in the European avant-metal scene. Extensive tours of Europe, North America and Russia in 2013 and 2014, including two appearances at Roadburn festival, Hellfest and a spectacular performance in a 17th Century fortress in the Carpathian mountains introduced them to a broader and quickly growing international audience.

With their seminal 3rd album Tocsin, released in 2013, Year Of No Light reached the peak of their career thus far – a logical decision that Consolamentum was made with the same team again: recorded and mixed by Cyrille Gachet at Cryogene in Begles / Bordeaux, mastered by Alan Douches at West West Side.

“We wanted this album to sound as organic and analog as possible”, comments the band. “All tracks were recorded live. The goal was to have the most natural, warm and clean takes possible, to give volume to the dynamics of the songs. We aimed to have a production with a singular personality.”

For the adept listener, Consolamentum seems to be venturing deeper into the dark and claustrophobic spheres explored on Tocsin – but the band doesn’t conceive of the evolution of their music in a linear way, as it would be apparent from looking at their discography.

“It’s more a matter of sonic devotion. Music against modern times. Year Of No Light” is above all a praxis. We wanted intensity, trance, climax and threat, all of them embedded in a bipolar and mournful ethos.”

Consolamentum will be available on 2xLP, CD and digital on July 2nd, 2021 via Pelagic Records. Preorders are available HERE: https://pelagic-records.com/artist/year-of-no-light/

Tracklisting:
01. Objuration
02. Alétheia
03. Interdit aux Vivants, aux Morts et aux Chiens
04. Réalgar
05. Came

https://yearofnolight.bandcamp.com/
http://www.facebook.com/yearofnolight
https://www.instagram.com/yearofnolightofficial
http://smarturl.it/yearofnolightDGTL
http://www.pelagic-records.com/
http://www.facebook.com/pelagicrecords

Year of No Light, Consolamentum (2021)

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