https://www.high-endrolex.com/18

Somnent Set Oct. 25 Release for Gardens From Graves

Posted in Whathaveyou on September 23rd, 2021 by JJ Koczan

Honestly, you had me at the phrase ‘behind the door of the sepulchre of pain.’ I’m a simple creature, after all, and drama-laced downer doom suits me just fine, feeling feelings and all that. Orlando, Florida, solo-project Somnent‘s second album, Gardens From Graves, alternates between shorter and longer tracks and has plenty of deathly bludgeon to go with its beauty-in-darkness resonance, and oh, I do like the title-track, throaty growls, softer, post-Opeth/Katatonia cleans and all. Giovanni Antonio Vigliotti, who made his debut as Somnent in 2015, has a dry-throat growl that sounds like it genuinely hurts, and the instrumental constructs he places behind it are fluid and purposeful, patient and encompassing. This isn’t everyone’s kind of metal, but even down to its acoustic bonus tracks, it’s a microgenre within doom that’s expressive unto itself.

It’s amazing to think it comes from someplace so warm. The 2017 debut LP, Sojourn, is streaming below. The new record — no public audio yet — refines melody and production alike, just for context.

The PR wire has release details. Gardens From Graves is out Oct. 25 on GS Productions:

somnent gardens from graves

Somnent to release second album, Gardens From Graves, on October 25th

Beneath the soil of scars and tears, nestled within a loam of lonely, silent nights and days blighted by cold stares and barbed words lie the patient seeds of fresh hope. A kernel of strength, a tiny heart of iron hidden within the darkness, waiting for the sun. Within the boneyard of loss and spite, behind the door of the sepulchre of pain, small eyes wait and watch for the memories to fade and the clouds of oppression to part…

The pain of emotional abuse and the determination to overcome its lasting wounds, the days of despair along the path to recovery, the suffocating darkness that threatens to overwhelm and that desperate, agonising but wonderful breath of hard fought for air; all of these infuse the intensely melancholic but utterly beautiful melodic death doom metal of Somnent’s new album. Gardens From Graves has the power to carry your heart through each step of this journey and it’s a listening experience that will leave you breathless. There is an honesty and integrity of emotion within these songs that goes far beyond any form of artistry or artifice. The sheer weight of sorrow can at times leave you frantic to escape the gloom, a living thing buried in its sleep, clawing through the earth. Yet the moments of peace, the beautiful melodies woven by the guitar and vocals are sublime. The greatest art is that which makes the listener or beholder feel – deeply and passionately – and the chalice of Gardens From Graves is overflowing with emotion. The rhythms align with your heartbeat, the lead work carries your spirit and the voice immerses your soul in a lake of tears – of pain, of sadness and hope.

Gardens From Graves is the realisation of all the potential displayed on Somnent’s previous releases, the Eventide EP of 2015 and the full length debut album, Sojourn, which came out in 2017. Featuring a guest appearance from Jari Lindholm (Enshine, Exgenesis) and evocative artwork created by Augusto Peixoto (Sinister Realm, In Solitude etc) this exquisite tome of doomed, melancholic metal will be released on October 25th by GS Productions. As winter draws in, clouds will cover the sky and your hearts will be forged anew in the cold flames of grief.

“This sorrow won’t last forever, even if some scars remain”

Tracklisting:
1. Silhouette
2. Acquiescence
3. Despite the Scourge
4. Fragments
5. Gardens from Graves
6. Blackened Heart feat. Jari Lindholm
7. Withered to a Shadow
8. Resolve [Bonus Track]
9. Fragments Acoustic [Bonus Track]

Line-up:
Giovanni Antonio Vigliotti – All music and vocals

https://www.facebook.com/somnent
https://somnent.bandcamp.com/
https://play.spotify.com/album/1Ggg3EBeT4cc5qwJBlz5aB
https://gsproduction.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/GSP-Magazine-671740502863277/
http://gsp-music.com/

Somnent, Sojourn (2017)

Tags: , , , , ,

Rise to the Sky Premiere Title-Track of Let Me Drown With You; Album out March 12

Posted in audiObelisk on February 9th, 2021 by JJ Koczan

rise to the sky

Chilean one-man death-room unit Rise to the Sky will release Let Me Drown With You on March 12 through Russia’s GS Productions. It has not been that long since the project spearheaded by
vocalist/multi-instrumentalist/engineer Sergio Gonzalez Catalan — aka Sergio G. — got its start; the debut album, Moonlight, came out in 2019. Along with a slew of periodically collected singles and two EPs, a second album, Death Will Not Keep Us Apart (discussed here), arrived later in 2020 — it was a good year for self-recording — and Let Me Drown With You will serve as the third full-length now in three years. Obviously there’s plenty of misery to go around, but that’s still an impressive rate for a project with such a lush sound, weeping guitar setting an atmosphere throughout topped by likewise morose growls recalling Paradise Lost of old, but not without a dynamic of their own, as the song “Let Me Drown With You,” premiering below, demonstrates.

Compared to some of what surrounds on the nine-track/54-minute outing, “Let Me Drown With You” might be considered uptempo, but it’s kind of a moot designation. As the album’s two segments play through, there are certainly moments of distinction likerise to the sky let me drown with you the string sounds on “Liebestod,” the is-that-keys-or-guitar amid the ferocious death growls on opener “See Me Fall Down” or the weight that even the acoustic-led interlude “Passion” still seems to bear as the record makes ready to answer the central progression there with the full-brunt complement in “Turn Us into Stone.” Themes of love, life and death pervade in self-aware fashion as Sergio G. uses a graceful hand to guide listeners through the flowing intro to “Leaving This World” and the weighted lumber that takes hold thereafter, while pre-epilogue finale “Bury Me in Your Heart” calls to mind mid-period Amorphis, if slower, in its skillful winding of guitar melody around a central, forward but still contemplative-feeling melody. To be fair, even some of these nuances are emblematic of the genre to which Rise to the Sky is working, but in the combination of elements and particular movements throughout the work, Let Me Drown With you is stirring and consuming without being entirely hopeless.

That last notion might best be represented in the fact that “Transformation (Postlude)” caps the album with a shimmering melody in the vein of later Anathema and not only brings symmetry to the proceedings with “Passion (Interlude)” in ending the first half of the album, but makes a purposefully optimistic turn following so much expression of sorrow. Prolific as Rise to the Sky is, the quantity of material Sergio G. puts out seems to do little to dull the emotional impact of a record like this one — passion to spare, perhaps. All the better, since the sincerity of purpose that seems to drive Let Me Drown With You meets head on with the performative aspects of style, adding heft and impact to each moment of delivery, whether that particular moment is tonally ‘heavy’ or not. Likewise, though as a band Rise to the Sky has come together with some measure of speed — three albums in three years and then some, etc. — the flow constructed across this third full-length’s span is every bit as patient and thoughtfully realized as one would hope for an outfit with two records already under its belt.

With the album out in March, “Let Me Drown With You” follows “Liebestod” as the second single, and can be heard on the player below, followed by preorder links and PR wire info.

Please enjoy:

Rise to the Sky new album “Let Me Drown With You” releases March 12, 2021 through Russian Doom Metal label GS Productions
Preorder CD at https://gsproduction.bandcamp.com/
Preorder Digital at https://risetothesky.bandcamp.com/

“Romance only comes into existence where love is fatal, frowned upon and doomed by life itself” (Denis de Rougemont, 1983).

Conceived in a time of fear and isolation, this album conveys deep reflections about life and death.

This album is released in loving memory of my father, who passed away suddenly on Jan 6, 2021. He was passionate about the people he loved and about everything he did, this music is a clear reflection of our way of life.

Track list:
Chapter I: Life, Dreams, and Passion
1. See Me Fall Down
2. Dream the Pain is Gone
3. Let Me Drown with You
4. Liebestod
5. Passion (Interlude)

Chapter II: Death, Grief, and Transformation
6. Turn Us into Stone
7. Leaving This World
8. Bury Me in Your Heart
9. Transformation (Postlude)

Music and Lyrics by Rise to the Sky
Production, drum composition, mixing and mastering by Filippos Koliopanos
Artwork by Gogo Melone
Special participation by Andreia Alves in: “Let Me Drown with You”
Recorded in Sergio´s Castle. Santiago, Chile

Rise to the Sky on Thee Facebooks

Rise to the Sky on Instagram

Rise to the Sky on Bandcamp

GS Productions on Bandacmp

GS Productions on Thee Facebooks

GS Productions website

Tags: , , , , ,

Rise to the Sky Stream “When Death Comes”; Death Will Not Keep Us Apart out Oct. 9

Posted in Whathaveyou on August 19th, 2020 by JJ Koczan

rise to the sky

What we’re learning here is that when death comes, it won’t keep us apart. It’ll join us. Then maybe we’ll be dancing? I’m not really clear on it, but to be fair, I haven’t heard the whole record. Chilean one-man death-doom outfit Rise to the Sky will make its dystopian-themed full-length debut in October through Moscow-based GS Production with Death Will Not Keep Us Apart, and, well, I continue to maintain that if 2020 has a single sound, it’s death-doom. Well, that or “WAP.” One or the other.

In any case, this one came my way via the PR wire and brought the single “When Death Comes” along, and golly that’s heavy. And lurching. And down. I dig it. As wretched as this year has been, it has produced some glorious doom, and as Rise to the Sky build on two initial EPs — the latest of which arrived in June and both of which are coupled with the album in a limited 2CD digipak — the potential here for longer-term progression is as exciting as the tempo is grueling.

Sign me up:

rise to the sky death will not keep us apart

Rise To The Sky – Death Will Not Keep Us Apart

Atmospheric death doom from Chile – Releases October 9th, 2020

“In a post-apocalyptic world, not long away from now, a couple run away from death, which takes the form of many creatures wandering this devastated world. They run around to many places, trying to avoid death, until they find a high cliff where they would be safe. Unfortunately, only he can make it up, while she is not able to climb up, facing certain death in the open land below the cliff. Upon this dilemma, he looks down the cliff towards his beloved one, and chooses to descend only to face death along her, hoping for eternal life together after they die. This was my dream and it is the inspiration for the album you are about to hear.” – Rise to the Sky

The album was produced along music producer Filippos Koliopanos (Ocean of Grief), who crafted a powerful yet profoundly emotional sound. The cover artwork and booklet were done by design artist Gogo Melone, who translated the music and album concepts into a genuine piece of art.

Tracklisting:
1. From the Distance
2. Pain and Blood
3. Together in the Grave
4. When Death Comes
5. High up Above
6. The Final Choice
7. Death Will Join Us
8. We are not Mourning
9. Dancing in the Dark (Death)

https://www.facebook.com/RIsetotheSkyBand
https://www.instagram.com/risetotheskyband
https://risetothesky.bandcamp.com/
https://gsproduction.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/GSP-Magazine-671740502863277/
http://gsp-music.com/

Rise to the Sky, Death Will Not Keep Us Apart (2020)

Tags: , , , , ,