LP Review: "Black Soil" by Apathy Noir

Black Soil

In St. Louis we have been dealing with a painful cold snap.

For the vast majority of us here, this type of cold is unfathomable, unthinkable, and unlivable.

For me, I just add a hoodie to my great coat ensemble and get going. My car warms up fast enough. There's an electric blanket on my seat.

Waking up in the mornings and seeing minus temperatures (in Fahrenheit no Celsius) can take us aback.

That kind of cold permeates the day. We've had precious little snow during this time, but the just cold is a bit worse here. The world is grey. The skies are grey. Our faces are sallow. The whole of our existences revolves around the cold. This is made doubly bad when your furnace goes kaputsky....

Apathy Noir

Now imagine a record so ensconced in mood that it blankets everything.

Apathy Noir is labeled a death/doom metal band...well it's really more appropriate to say that Black Soil is a death/doom record.

Apathy Noir is the solo project of Viktor Jonas with the inclusion of Andy Walmsley on vocals.

Walmsley makes this album sound absolutely nothing like death/doom to me.

His vocal approach is very black metal.

The resulting sound is somewhat similar to Ahab, but with a much stronger emotional component.

Rarely do black metal vocals add to a song, but when they do, it's typically amazing.It's even rarer still that this type of vocal adds any emotional component. So, in this case Walmsley simply hits a home run.

But this isn't an a capella record and it's unquestionably heavy and unabashedly complex. It builds and builds.

The guitars are clean, dirty, and and everywhere in between. This album is the cold snow that continues to fall when all you want to do is escape.

Release: 1/31/18
Genre: Death/Doom Metal
Label: DIY
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