ALBUM REVIEW: Worldless – The Sun’s Journey Through The Night

Since the release of their debut demo The Endless Night in 2019, THE SUN’S JOURNEY THROUGH THE NIGHT have quickly become one of the UK’s most prolific acts, resulting in a swift rise to prominence within the underground. The band’s blend of grating, discordant black metal and heady dark ambience has given this project a sound that is atmospheric and claustrophobic in equal measure, gaining them a reputation as one of the best raw black metal acts in the country. Now, with the band’s sole member being joined by a full line-up and beginning to tour, they look poised to rise even higher, and their fourth album Worldless shows a more inspired and focused version of what this band could be moving forward.

Abolishing Consciousness, with its shimmering atmospherics and sludgy guitar tone, proves to be an immersive and monolithic start to proceedings, ducking and weaving between crystalline moments and visceral frenetic ones with ease. The acerbic howl of the vocals perfectly complements the weighty hooks, tinged with melodic flourishes, making this an extremely eclectic track with an opaque, murky quality that helps make everything sound even more beguiling. Worldless leans into the lighter, polished guitar sound that was hinted at on the first song, but applies a more jarring approach to the playing, turning this into an angular slab of black metal with soaring, grandiose elements that distinguishes it from the denser, darker sound of its predecessor. A lot of space is left open for dark ambient passages, which add another hypnotic layer to an already varied and adventurous offering, thickening out the sound with an ethereal touch.

Void Walker adds even more depth to the album’s sound, with subtle, borderline symphonic keyboards and acoustic guitars setting the scene before the music launches headlong into a vicious slab of blistering black metal with razor sharp guitars, thunderous drums and acidic vocals, blending the heavier and punchier components within the band’s sound together more seamlessly than on the last two tracks. It’s another cavernous, imaginative number that pushes the music into an even more ambitious direction. Grief, The Star, a shorter, more subdued effort, completely strips away the black metal core of the album and embraces the underlying ambient keyboards more fully, serving as a powerful interlude between the album’s two halves and using only the barest musical elements to create an engrossing and dramatic break from the rest of the record.

Flood Of Flames picks up seamlessly from where the last track left off, introducing grand, post-rock inspired guitar work that very abruptly lurches into blistering, caustic black metal, serving as perhaps the album’s most grating and aggressive offering so far. Everything, from the intricate drums and tight, razor sharp guitars through to the arid, piercing vocals, feels more focused and intense, rarely departing from this speed and ferocity, other than for a few cleaner, ponderous moments from the guitar that are peppered liberally throughout. Even these sections are imbued with a discordance that makes them feel sinister, playing up to the dark ambient undercurrent within the band’s sound whilst using these elements to complement the music’s harsher side.

Orion adopts the formula of the preceding track, but manages to add catchier leads and a punchier sound overall, with the end result being an impressively bestial slab of black metal with some excellent memorable hooks and venom-soaked vocals and jarring flourishes that help keep things anchored well within the genre’s more acerbic side. The haunting atmospheric interlude at the heart of the song similarly is one of the album’s best, in no small part due to the underlying symphonic touches that immediately grab the listener’s attention. This is a suitably epic conclusion to the record, bringing things to a close on arguably one of its strongest efforts.

Worldless is easily the band’s definitive album so far, with the sound feeling far tighter and more polished than on their first three albums, without sacrificing any of the intensity and acerbic qualities that made their early work so impactful. Much of the murky rawness of those early records has been stripped away, but still has a place deep within the sound, with a lot more emphasis being placed on the black metal rather than the dark ambient influences within the band’s sound. The fact that this album was written and recorded by four rather than just one person has helped to make it sound more varied and imaginative, building on the strengths of the band’s earlier records and presenting a tighter, leaner and, most importantly, catchier version of their established style, making this a much more eclectic piece of music as a result.

Rating: 9/10

Worldless is out now via Church Road Records.

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