AETHER - Metamorphosis II (2015)

Today I have been really into the various works of AETHER which all sort of hover around an ambient-electro-black-metal aesthetic but are also very different from each other. This full-length, Metamorphosis II, almost sounds like Streetcleaner-era Godflesh in a a Russian-Roulette-off with CODY-era Mogwai like those two bull mooses frozen in a stream together, antlers locked, translated into melancholy single-person black metal isolationism which really works for me. Not as soundscape or trance oriented as the singles/ep's which surround it, but definitely very high quality stuff. I dig the moaning/echoing vocals which sound like if the aurora borealis above the frozen moose corpses was made up of their ghosts, now all swirled together and efflorescent in the night sky. here is an interview with AETHER in OccultBlackMetalZine wherein among other interesting things, they stress being anti-homophobic/anti-fascist/anti-racist/anti-NSBM/pro-anarchy/pro-atheism which is right on. AETHER represents a kind of anti-mysticism which ends up embodying a sort of emptied transcendental feeling totally in keeping with the sound of their musick. Anomalia is a single from 2016 by AETHER which makes a kind of black metal/trance techno? hybrid from drum machine/loops. I am old enough that it reminds me of The Third Eye Foundation which I realize now is musick from 20 years ago. Anomalia is Futurist Black Metal Haze and that means a lot to me.