Agartha or “Aghartha” is defined by Wikipedia as “a legendary city that is said to be located in the Earth’s core”. Upon reading this, it’s easy to imagine a subterranean realm of labyrinthine crystal tunnels and underground spires bejeweled with amethyst and opal, its denizens silently traversing the roots of the earth to worship old gods at silent, hidden altars. This is a glimpse of the imagery that the moniker Escaping Aghartha conjures in my mind, and my introduction to this project is songwriter Avery Dart’s foremost opus, “Evoke.Contrast.Evolve.”
What originally began, according to Escaping Aghartha’s bandcamp page, as a dark ambient project, has since metamorphosed into a funereal hybrid of the former and doom metal, with blackened elements as sharp and finely honed as an obsidian blade. “Evoke…” exudes a soft melancholy, while maintaining a palatable heaviness with hints of the early works of the “Peaceville Three” (Anathema, Paradise Lost, and most significantly in this case, My Dying Bride). Dart’s vocals, both clean and growled, combined with elegiac lyrics, bright piano tones and lumbering riffs create a fantastic picture of windswept tundras and frozen wastes, isolation, desolation, and desperation.
Dark ambient elements remain an integral part of this project, and have been skillfully blended with the heavier side of this recording, which frequently alternates between heavy tones and soft, dolorous string sections, with almost seamless transitions from sound to sound. The soothing blend of darkness and melody offered herein is noteworthy for the gray, overcast atmosphere that permeates this album. Evoke.Contrast.Evolve is the auditory equivalent of freezing to death slowly in utter solitude and knowing your corpse will never be recovered from beneath the hoarfrost.
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Evoke.Contrast.Evolve by Escaping Aghartha
Towers of Rust 