ANGEL
Kalmukia
EMEGO 087CD
Editions Mego 2008
04 Tracks. 57mins47secs

As though emerging from a pirate airwave, the deep wobbly bass and stabs of twilight noise that open Kalmukia shadow the dirty, chaotic dynamism of so much present-day metal rock. It makes for a disconcerting moment, but at the very least, the rest of the album is an oftentimes disorienting, disjointed experience.

Ilpo Vaisanen (Pan Sonic), Hildur Guonadottir (Lost In Hildurness), and Dirk Dresselhaus (Schneider TM) tie together all of their loose, flying ends, but a great deal of curiosity and tact isn’t shown in the process.With the sharp contrast between the first pair of tracks, a premonition of an album of many threads, crisscrossed here and there, woven into deranged sound structures, devotedly served, rises to the fore. Nothing of the sort happens, though, and the group not only settle into the style of the second, more ambient piece of evil, but they fall asleep in it.

A gooey consistency is maintained throughout the album. Much is happening, but within a rather narrow compass. Thus the slow pace doesn’t mean minimal development. Problematic, however, is that the sedate horror-film ambience is repeated rather than closed in on, and suggested rather than slyly challenged. With few moments of exception, guitar scrapes, rumbles, and judders correspond closely with the dark droning cello of Guondottir, with Vaisanen’s surprisingly tame electronic hatching and shading. There is a certain dexterity in the playing, and indeed it hints at much, a good deal of which hasn’t been advanced upon as of this point.

3/5

Angel (MySpace) | Editions Mego
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