Year: 2020
Total Time: 35:45
Label: Oaken Palace Records

Depression nowadays can come in many shapes. One of those is the absolute silence of the person in pain, who is suffering every night until the end reaches like the ultimate redemption. This is exactly the feeling that this album creates and is clearly described in the general title “In The Lugubrious Silence Of Eternal Night”.

So this actual side project under the name GOLDEN ASHES, is a creation, or as we should better say a Sacrilege made by Maurice de Jong, one experimental artist from the Netherlands who is mostly known from his work with GNAW THE TONGUE and also is doing graphic arts and in 2015 he published his first book with drawings he made for his other music projects. The album we are presenting here is the second one after “Gold Are The Ashes Of The Restorer” from 2019”.

In GOLDEN ASHES, like in most of his other bands he plays solo with the company of a drum machine, something that oddly isn’t ruining my appetite as it usually happens, maybe because it brings in my mind older similar groups from the 90’s, like the incredible TARTAROS from Norway.

Here, things are rather simple. From the beginning till the end, we have hyper speed drums covered under a silky veil of atmospheric keyboards which are dominating all over the album, together of course with guitars and bass, those are following behind but are important in order to provide the necessary bulkiness  in the sound. The vocals are coming straight from the deepest abyss and are full of pain and sorrow, this was the purpose of the artist anyway.

If I had to describe the album in simple words, I’d characterize it as an experimental atmospheric black metal album which needs more than one or two hearings plus the appropriate mood from the side of the listener in order to dive into it properly, understand its purpose and enjoy it at its fullest. Imagine a band such as EMPEROR, joining forces with let’s say LIMBONIC ART or MAYHEM and all of them together covering MY DYING BRIDE at 300bpm. Now I think you get a better idea of the situation we are facing here.

The running time is in my opinion enough, as if there was much more material in here there would be the danger of monotony or boredom around, while the best moments I think are the epic opening track “As Sacred Bodies Wither Into Nothingness” and also “Let Death Stalk My Enemies, Let The Grave Swallow Them Alive”, “Black Mouths Murmur Black Prayers” and of course the title track somewhere after the first half.

So, if you believe that the summer that is now here in its full force isn’t for you and you need something new to listen at your place alone with your misery and a bottle of Jack, or at least you feel the need to revive some of the good old days of majestic black metal, then this album is your only choice!

Rating:7/10
Editor: Antonis Livanios
Related Link: GOLDEN ASHES – Bandcamp Page