(Dark Ambient/Drone) clouds of static - Sullen Visions
3 replies, posted
[IMG]https://f1.bcbits.com/img/a3268849809_2.jpg[/IMG]
[URL]https://fullempty.bandcamp.com/album/sullen-visions[/URL]
[media]http://soundcloud.com/arboria/brutal-fucking-murder[/media]
Made this over the last couple months, Started out as an EP but I kept making more songs. Most of the songs are inspired by dreams and nightmares I remember from my childhood.
[B]Track list:[/B]
[B]1. Something More (6:14)
2. Caustic Landscapes (3:51)
3. Ouroboros (4:44)[/B][B]
4. Leviathan/Harsiese (9:24)
[/B][B]5. Red With Rage (4:27)[/B][B]6. Out Of The Void (5:59)
7. Sullen Visions (11:32)
8. Brutal Fucking Murder (3:48)[/B]
UFT has been sending me his works as he finishes them over the past few months, and I find them to be quite nice pieces to listen to when working on projects of mine. They are quite atmospheric and provide good inspiration.
a bit late on this one but i'll try to find some time to give it a proper spin and give opinions, i have high hopes thanks to your previous release
ok, first of all i gotta say that that's a damn beautiful album cover. the album name is okay as well, but the album cover is great.
anyways, i'll get straight to the meat with the first track, Something More. not really a fan of the sample you used here, sounds out of place, maybe too loud, but we have those trademark clouds of static soundscapes playing off in the background
then that kind of industrial noise comes in and whacks around a bit, it's pretty cool, but i can't really get into it properly because of how the pacing started.
towards the end it actually starts sounding like electric discharges, which is a very nice transition. it keeps on rattling until the end of the song. not a very noteworthy song, but it works.
maybe could've used a more grand and large opening track to really get the listener invested, but that's just my idea.
Caustic Landscapes comes in straight from the outro of the first track, no break. i've always been a fan of unindentifiable, dark, distant muffled noises, so i like the ominous intro on this track.
it feels like it's going with a similar structure as the first track but without the intro sample, with a sharper synth slowly coming in, some softer spacious synths building over the sharper synth, then fading out and letting the sharper synth play until the end of the song.
this track's pretty short, not much going on that i can comment on.
Ouroboros has a more dynamic intro, changing from the large soundscapes into a single small drone with some subtle fading light notes coming in and out. a much lighter mood than the first 2 tracks, i'm feeling it.
there's actually a melody going on here, which is a good pace change from the first 2 soundscape-based songs. this one actually has a post-rocky feel with how the melodies and chords work.
the second half ditches that light feel and instead goes for a more uneasy approach, using the themes from the first half as a jumping board to make the contrast feel stronger.
i like it, it's not full-blown ominous or evil, but a certain uneasiness that keeps the listener on edge. good, subtle track that adds to the dynamics of the album.
then it ends with a very subtle, spacious lofty bed, very good ending for the song, one of your better outros.
Leviathan/Harsiese (now that's a goddamn great song title), one of the 2 longer songs on the album starts with a low-tone buzzing noise, very great feel going on with the dark, monolithic sounds starting to slowly fade in, working off the subtler nature of the last track.
there's some crackling going on with a big soundscape flowing in, taking over the soft buzzing from the intro. the dark backing has a sort of a choir sound going for it, which i wish was fleshed out more, but right now it sounds very similar to the soundscapes in the first and second tracks.
sadly the crackling fades away without really being fleshed out either.
there's a cello-like synth coming in and playing some notes with a big backing drone like the one from earlier. like with the crackling, i wished the cello was fleshed out more, there's a lot of stuff just kind of coming in and out on this album so far without much impact.
a cool higher drone comes in after the cello, kind of reminding me of a submarine underwater, a sonar that's really stretched out. kind of a shame that a song with such an epic title doesn't really go anywhere or fully bloom at any point, though this problem isn't new to your works, i'm just not feeling the random soft soundscapes coming in and out without much impact.
Red With Rage has some really cool sounds going on, way more of that dynamic nature that i'm looking for. there's some cool subtleties and a better balance between the big soft backing sounds and sharper drones, which usually seem to get ignored in your songs, at least too often.
i'm feeling this track much more than the first, second and fourth ones, it leaves a much bigger impact and has better variety and balance of different types of sounds with some supermassive dark drones popping in every now and then to keep the flow going.
good track, it's not too long and keeps itself interesting for the entirety of it's runtime.
Out of the Void starts with a jerky repeating piano-like sound. thanks to the jerky, blockier feel it's a welcome change from the early slow and soft fading soundscapes. it devolves into a just a repeating noise, losing it's piano-like qualities after a while and become a more metallic, engine like chugging, very nice.
some more booming, almost horn-like sounds start colouring the backrground, it's a shame it's hiding behind walls of reverb. you shouldn't be afraid of having more sharpness in your drones, there's so much soft reverberation going on it makes the whole thing feel more stale than it should and could.
the rattling quiet drone at the very end is super trippy, more like that please.
Sullen Visions keeps that machine-like engine theme going with a repeating sample of i don't even know what, but it sure sounds metallic.
some weird beeping noises go off every now and then, very bizarre feel, but i can get behind it. a fairly clear choir-like backing track comes through as well, sounding clearer than most of the earlier soundscapes, which is good.
while this track is slower than Red With Rage, it doesn't feel as static or meaningless as the first 2 tracks, probably because it doesn't keep the same reverb going on in the background constantly, but has more space going on and nicer subtleties instead of just big soft soundscapes.
the airy backing in the last third is really good, with the weird panned repeating sharper sounds and the metro tunnel sounding backing with some melody going on as well. great atmosphere on this section, definitely one of the better parts, not quite sold on the weird synth that plays on the front every now and then though, but it doesn't take anything away from the experience.
kind of wish that that sharp rattling big noise that comes in afterwards to signal the outro of the song starting was bigger, louder and more monolithic though, i feel it should've really surrounded the song.
the outro is very good though, it's got good balance, a nice choir backing that works off the earlier choir-like backing and then the sharp panning starts to glitch out a bit, it's nice.
Brutal Fucking Murder comes in very suddenly, which i assume is the point, really surprising me with it's rhythmic nature.
the noise could be a bit sharper still though, it sounds like it was dulled a bit
but godDAMN that monolithic horn that comes in after a bit, now that's what i'm talking about. beautiful, dynamic range, absolutely booming slab of darkness, really gets to me and i love it.
creepy airy soundscapes start forming up and even a light guitar comes in, sounding almost like an animal's roar of some sort, sounds fantastic, it's a shame it only plays once and the song doesn't really get enough time to form.
not happy with how the album just kind of stops. i think it'd have been better if the sound cut out and had that beautiful horn from earlier on in the song play it out and fade out
right now the ending is just kind of "really, that's it?", since it doesn't even stop at the most intense part either, it just kind of builds down from the guitar shout and then doesn't know where to go and just stops.
overall, it's like your earlier albums. lots of soft soundscapes, most of the pretty forgettable but with some really awesome sections and parts here and there.
i feel the main problem is to do with the mixing, the album doesn't really sound dynamic enough and all the soft soundscapes sound too similar to eachother.
something about the reverb especially, like it sounds like the same reverb was used for all of them, which really kills the outwordly feeling.
i think the best way to describe it is that it sounds like all of them are played underwater. you could use a lot more of the range you're given as well, the balance between softness and sharpness is really not good.
don't be afraid of making some sharp noises, the dull sounds get really tiring when they all have the same limitations and similar reverberations.
it's not bad, but definitely could be better. i think you should really take more time with making albums and sit at a cutting board
the thing with drone and dark ambient is that you really have to pay attention to pacing and dynamics instead of just making tracks and putting them together
hell, add the cut out tracks as bonus tracks that you can buy, that's what i did
but yeah, work on cutting down on songs that feel more pointless (especially tracks like Caustic Landscapes) and adding more variety, range and dynamics to your works.
also, please make a good album outro next time :v:
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