ALBUM REVIEW: Much Unseen Is Also Here – Lustmord
It has been 43 years since Welsh composer Brian Williams, also known as LUSTMORD, stepped out onto his creative journey. A pioneer of dark ambience, LUSTMORD has undertaken a vast array of musical endeavours, from his own solo material, to assisting with composition for movies and video games, and working alongside other artists such as TOOL and SWANS. Now, LUSTMORD has returned once more to focus on his own solo legacy, with a sound that Williams states exists as a “means of exposing the sheer insignificance of our primitive thoughts and actions within the vast scale of the cosmos”. That cosmic horror and existential dread is captured perfectly on the record Much Unseen Is Also Here.
For those seeking a conventional listening experience, Much Unseen Is Also Here may not appeal; that is not to say that the album is bad, far from it in fact, but what LUSTMORD has crafted exists less as a collection of songs, or even a musical exploration of a concept or story, but instead as a sonic cinematic experience. To pull out singular highlights across the span of this record is difficult; there are no catchy melodies, no hooks, no drops or breakdowns. Instead, you are most often confronted with a brooding ambience engulfed by an aura of darkness
Some tracks on here do features moments of musical brightness that cut through the gloom. Invocation Of The Nameless features a haunting oboe melody set against a blustery, windswept soundscape, whilst An Angel Dissected chooses to contrast the imposing bass with soft chimes, rousing woodwind, and tremolo strings, ultimately culminating in a viscerally menacing feeling that permeates the whole affair.
Moments of this album truly feel as though they are some components of a living monstrosity, such as the raspy breathing towards the end of Entrails Of The God Machine, whilst Their Souls Asunder wields deeply unsettling choral vocals that are warped and distorted just enough to strip them of humanity, before building to a climax that appears to utilise dissonant woodwind in a way of crafting sounds that are guaranteed to make the listener feel unbelievably uncomfortable. LUSTMORD clearly has a deep understanding of how to convey a feeling through sound alone, and at the highlights of this album, it is a magical experience to behold.
As previously mentioned, any semblance of conventional song structures, instrumental or otherwise, are absent from this listen. On top of that, all of the tracks here possess runtimes that manage to cross the seven-minute threshold, with multiple creeping over the ten-minute mark. Unfortunately, this does mean that the album does possess many moments at which it struggles to retain your full attention; moments in between musical highlights on this record, during which the listener is left with little more than an ambient suggestion of music, appear too frequently.
Furthermore, there is little to clearly differentiate these individual tracks without multiple listens; certainly, this is rewarding for fans of LUSTMORD‘s brand of cinematic sounds, but perhaps this record would have felt more thoroughly ambitious as a single, extensive track, enabling the listener to truly feel as though they are accompanying LUSTMORD on a journey in this strange, unholy land.
However, to deny that this record is an impressive feat of musicianship would be to lie. Much Unseen Is Also Here is a record that confronts the very boundaries of what can even be classified as music, existing more as a roiling fog of ideas that rises up to greet the listener before dissolving once more into ambiguity. Should you possess the time, sit down, turn off all other distractions, and allow what LUSTMORD has crafted to take you to places dark and unknowable.
Rating: 8/10
Much Unseen Is Also Here is set for release on March 15th via Pelagic Records.
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