Epitimia's new double-album "(Un)reality" is a culmination of over a year's hard work for the Saint-Petersburg based band which has been working on an expansive and ambitious follow-up to their last album "Faces of Insanity" released in the summer of 2012. "(Un)reality" includes lots of new innovations and interesting ideas on both the musical and conceptual sides and could easily be considered their most accomplished effort to date. Tortured black metal screams alongside a progressive and experimental cacophony of sounds combine to create a truly memorable and complex album taking various elements from many genres including post-rock, black metal, blackgaze, ambient, and jazz to create the sonic palette for this conceptual story. Female vocalist "M." is also present on the album once again as well as very interesting session work from the saxophonist D'arcy Molan (from the debut Subterranean Disposition album) whose contributions appears throughout the album. Released in a deluxe 6 panel digipack with an additional 12 page booklet and augmented with artwork from Mayhem Design in Russia, this is certainly Epitimia's magnum opus!
"(Un)reality is like limbo, the world where the hero lingers. His day life here is infinite and artificial, but his dreams fill his mind with bright new images, odd flashbacks, and the reminiscence of his other lives. These visions are the keys to understanding what is happening to him, and may be the only chance to escape. "Delusion" contains the dark images of objective reality while "Illusions" is a moment in which all his dreams merge: hope, love and as the most important -- the desire for truth, by which he will be free forever."
lyrics
Пройдены все стези
И не вернуться назад.
В порыве отчаяния тело
Подвешено на ветвях.
Петлёй шея сдавлена
Вырвана твердь из-под скошенных ног
Я вожделел к жизни праведной,
Мирских страстей в себе раздавить плод.
И снова...
Я словно в круге непрерывных стенаний.
Срываю маски с вопрошающих лиц,
Что норовили узнать мои тайны.
Неизбежно:
Словно камень, падаю вниз.
Крылья делают единственный взмах,
Но, не успев, обратились в пепел.
Мне бы притронуться
К увядающим в унынии сердцам.
Зажечь их самым ярким огнём,
Предав себя в жертву...
Отец! Внемли молитвам моим,
Беззвучный голос внутри
Взывает о всепрощении.
Мне страшно, ведь исчезло всё
К чему так трепетно
Относились мы.
Разбей зеркала,
В которых я стал похожим на них.
Убей во мне слабость.
Мне слишком тесно в этом дряхлом мире.
credits
from (Un)reality,
track released February 15, 2014
A. - Music, Guitars, Bass, Sound Engineering
K. - Lyrics, Vocals
I. - Session Guitar
D'arcy Molan - Guest Saxaphone
Hypnotic Dirge Records is an independent record label and webshop based in Saskatchewan, Canada and Lisbon, Portugal active since 2008. Our intention and raison d'être is to release quality expressive and eclectic art through aural manifestations.
PSA: if there was an album you heard a couple years ago and thought it was ok, listen to it again and you might love it.
That's what happened to me with this album. I cannot fathom why it didn't stick with me back then. Same thing happened with Decoherence's Unitarity for that matter. Matten
After listening to Ysyry Mollvün, listening to Downfall of Nur was urgent and turned out to be one of the best decisions I have made in quite some time: Umbras de Barbagia is simply magisterial; the atmosphere can hardly be compared to anything else. There is a deep, palpable connection to nature imbueing each very fibre of this record. The amalgamation of black metal and folk elements is done with a high intuition for detail and class, resulting in a highly immersive experience. Wonderful. David Fischer