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ALBUM REVIEW: Ascending Into Shimmering Darkness – Coltsblood

Doom metal trio COLTSBLOOD make their long awaited return. The Liverpool and North West based doom three piece first formed in 2010, by 2013 the band had together a demo track then just one year later came the first full length Into The Unfathomable Abyss. This is a very well perceived album by metalheads everywhere, but now they return to grace us once again with the second full length Ascending Into Shimmering Darkness, with new crushingly heavy riffs that take us to places unknown.

The title track and first song is Ascending Into Shimmering Darkness, this 13 minute masterpiece begins with an outstanding stoner riff that instantly blows you away with heavy euphoric vibes. This creates the perfect start for this first track, it jumps you instantly  into the heaviness this band can produce, the song then has a break with just the bass guitar playing until the song progresses with evil sounding tremolo picking before going into the extremely slow riffs with long lasting notes and evil shrieking vocals. The drums then change pace giving it an early black metal sound of raw and pure darkness. The song then soothes once again but this time with only fuzzy guitar playing a riff that makes you feel like rising smoke swirls, which is then only enhanced when the rest of the band follow suit, the band then continue to dominate the ears of the masses with this sound right until the end.

Another great track is titled The Legend Of Abhartach, this song begins by playing with an eerie almost echoing guitar tone for a short section but before you know it they stamp on the fuzz and begin to play extremely hefty and slowed down riff with intense growls, this makes for a combination that instantly requires your full attention, to progress on this sound they add spacey sounding synths. The band then begin to speed up the track for a short section, this is most definitely enhanced by the use of double bass pedal before reverting to the slower sound we witnessed earlier. Another great addition to this is sound is the actual notes being played as the occasional higher note makes for a feel that band CONAN have harnessed in the past but they really do make it their own.

The last song on this album is titled The Final Winter, starting out with melodic acoustic sounding guitars that have a trippy echoing tone to it that just orders your body to sway,  they then better this heart felt riff by adding they’re usual heaviness. The vocals also have a great combination, there is an almost choir church singing acting as a back ground for the possessed low growls which make for a truly beautiful sound that suddenly grabs your attention. The band then fade out the distortion and continue to play the echoing acoustic guitar one last time to perfectly complete the album.

All in all Ascending Into Shimmering Darkness is guaranteed to leave you in complete open mouthed shock, it’s safe to say this record will undoubtedly be one of the best doom metal albums to grace the scene this year and hopefully with many more releases from the mighty COLTSBLOOD to come. The record is out now on Candlelight Records. Are you ready to ascend?

Rating: 9/10

Accending Into Shimmering Darkness - Coltsblood

Ascending Into Shimmering Darkness is out now via Candlelight Records.

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