ALBUM REVIEW: Subtle Realms, Subtle Worlds – Shadow Universe
We’re all born into the world the same way, and we all leave it the same, too. However, we don’t all experience it the same. We live in our own living, breathing ecosystems; communal bubbles that bend and break to society’s shifting consensus. Whether you believe in nature or nurture, we are products of our environments, and of those around us.
When you sit and think about it, the scale is so comprehensive, so complex, and so commanding that it can keep you up at night. It’s these patterns of thought and these bubbles of life that Slovenia’s SHADOW UNIVERSE go searching for on their third album, Subtle Realms, Subtle Worlds. Much like the ecosystems they’re trying to encapsulate, SHADOW UNIVERSE have evolved since 2018’s Speaking For Clouds. Shaking off their penchant for traditional post-metal, Subtle Realms, Subtle Worlds is a neoclassical wonderland where pianos and strings prioritize ambience and atmosphere over technical dexterity.
Whereas Speaking For Clouds found its comfort in the darkness and intensity of post-metal, with its monolithic guitar lines front and centre; Subtle Realms, Subtle Worlds basks in the beauty of subtlety, of the pitter patter of pianos, of isolated string solos and in field recordings. Unlike their previous work, you feel as if you’re submerged into a soundtrack, as if you’re watching the birth and death of worlds.
Subtle Realms, Subtle Worlds is SHADOW UNIVERSE‘s shortest work to date, yet their most explorative. Stretched across six tracks, extended timings give them a sense of freedom their music hasn’t yet felt. Experimenting with field recordings, saxophone solos and channel mixing, they conjure up sounds that work, and that sounds that don’t. Their willingness to experiment, to push the boundaries of their musical capabilities, is a double-edged sword.
For example, opener Organism starts understatedly, as a solo piano simmers and running water drips in the background. Feedback flutters in, everything builds, and suddenly the guitars come crashing in like a tsunami over a coastal town, only its impact is muted as it fades back out, an underwhelming execution to a sublime set-up. Elsewhere on Losing Home, echoing pianos put you on the edge of your seat, only to send you back into your resting position as it amounts to nothing but a fumble between haphazard math-inspired drumming and a saxophone solo straight out of Gerry Rafferty’s playbook.
But when they find their feet, they hit the ground running. Don’t Look At It And You’ll See It plunges you into a piano-laden, string-led period drama, as you fumble through the cold streets searching for warmth. As percussion permeates the track, higher tempos trickle in and colour a scene full of suspense that ultimately switches midway into a collision course of soaring guitars and operatic piano going to war. And Antares Goes Supernova carefully conceptualizes the death of a star in sound, as subtle synths pulse through like light, sparse patterns of drumming drifting in and out before radiant riffs roll in to set events in motion. Everything then bleeds into blackened-death post-metal insanity, before finally drifting back into simplicity as the star explodes.
On Subtle Realms, Subtle Worlds, SHADOW UNIVERSE swap post-metal traditions for neoclassical experiments. Like the worlds they wish to explore, the ecosystems they seek to discover, their songs soar in places, and fall short of the mark in others. Regardless, this is their strongest work yet, and a soundtrack to the movie in your mind you must hear.
Rating: 7/10
Subtle Realms, Subtle Worlds is set for release on March 11th via Monotreme Records.
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