EP REVIEW: 11 Days – Spectral Lore
The central theme to SPECTRAL LORE’s latest release is one that feels both universally terrifying and yet grounded in a specific, real-world atrocity that is allowed to continue today. 11 Days, while styled as an EP, runs at over 40 minutes, giving you plenty of time to sit and dwell on the atmosphere and anxiety of tracks.
The record starts like it means business, with a solid, mean riff GOJIRA would be envious of by the name of Moloch. The swirling, tumult of the lead guitars is clean and erratic, beautiful and impossible to keep up with. This, alongside the churning chugging of the rhythm section and despairing, guttural vocals, gives a chunky, otherworldly sense to the song. The descent into the body of the song is really dirty, uncovering more and more layers and resulting a genuinely fantastic wave of moody, groove-laden metal. The snare rattles like a gun, laying atop the already swirling, overlapping instrumentals, brutal and beautiful in equal measure. By the track’s end, the whole cacophony is unreadable, an intentionally oppressive symphony that actively looks to overwhelm.
It’s a sonic assault that really clarifies the point of the album; a journey endured by thousands. A journey that kills a horrific amount. 11 Days is a fictional representation of the migrants’ journey through the Mediterranean Sea, ‘one of the most dangerous in existence for refugees and has caused the loss of thousands of lives.’
Fortitude Sunrise is a completely different beast; its haunting, cold intro seethes and festers. Its uncaring drone and breathy wind disguise a synth layer, like fog keeping all manner of danger hidden. It creeps up over a good five minutes until you realise the whole track is around you, with no way to escape. This is anxiety on another level, the pressing wait as the track teases itself into existence. The fortitude of the title appears not to be a gift of the weather, but rather in the case of our fictional protagonist, some inner grit to hold together and weather out the unseen until that dawn break. The lighter end of the track provides some of that watery relief, a trickling, gentle flurry of ambient sound carries us on to the end extension of this perilous record.
With that sense of calm just about settling, the jarring hit of Ando Onzi with its relentless, battering beat is even more alarming. The push and pull between synth and death metal between the songs is a lovely way to sonically paint the landscape of this treacherous passage. While atmosphere is the main aim from both stylistic approaches, the shift in time signatures and the constantly shifting parameters of where the song might be going really connects on this one. With it being so fluid and expressive, it’s a breath-taking arrangement that conveys the utter exhaustion of 11 Days.
The final turn of the record moves in the way you’d expect by now; Tremor-Kalunga Line’s haunting, synth driven melody calms the air after the onslaught of Ando Onzi. It’s never exactly calming to the soul, with the feeling that there’s been a change in our central character, as you would expect after such an ordeal as trying to navigate the harsh and perilous seas, trying to escape a life or past you couldn’t have survived in. There’s something stronger that comes out of the end, the feeling of melancholy still deep within the rising and falling of the gentle synth, but also some hope that the worst might be over, with the stoicism to accept it may not be.
Each of these songs is pushing the limits in so many ways. The length of tracks is of course par for the course with the genres being played with; they lean into the ideas of genre as well as the story SPECTRAL LORE is trying to tell us. But it’s the way those frenetic moments are tied together, the ebb and flow of it all that results in a very accomplished whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. It’s an emotional journey, exciting but horrifying, in part tranquil without release, with the threat of more violence just around the next turn. 11 Days is a record that achieves all it sets out to, and as a listener you’re all the better and more conscious for hearing it.
Rating: 9/10
11 Days is out now via self-release.
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