There's a drizzle outside, it obscures the features of things already made indistinct by twilight. The smudging of nature is compounded by the discovery that the precipitate is soot, not water. A sweep of your arm smears the surroundings like the rub of your thumb on a charcoal picture.

“s.y.b.e.r.i.a.” is a blur of funeral Black Metal, paraded out of focus and monochrome throughout, shades of grey pulse and flow dependent on the level of bleakness the man is expressing. The title track trudges and trips along caked in despair as a sadistic percussion flays at it, trying to move it along despite knowing it can't. You are instantly enveloped by the mournful futility expressed, it saps your resolve and you give yourself up to whatever dark fate awaits.

The first two tracks on this MCD are far from processional, the drums beat out a fast tattoo, but the other instrumentation forms a rich drone which beguiles you until progress is negligible. Everything is tainted by the mist of decay, nothing is clear as a veil of static turns these songs into a Bakelite radio transmission. The simplicity of form allows you to peer through the murk and draw from the experience, despite the composition being skilled, it is not sophisticated.

“Numb” is a Black Ambient piece that you can interpret as you will. Usually this sort of music leaves me somewhat bemused but here the visions of the void are so strongly etched out that I can't help but be impressed by the primal pictures of a classical Hell or perhaps the cold space between galaxies. VHERNEN employs an electric cello on this album and its use is most noticeable on this track, it also resonates on the other tracks in splendid fashion.

Just when you thought matters couldn't get any worse “Funeral Aurora” creeps into being, crawling along like a battered and broken SUMMONING track it attempts to rise but the bleakness has too strong a hold and the misery continues. Flashes of emphasis only serve to illuminate the wretchedness of existence, the whispered vocals evoking the calls of ghosts from the other side. If you find pleasure in having all meaning taken from you, this song is for you.

This blend of Black Metal and Doom provides a hypnotic escape from anything tainted by joy, it seeps into your subconscious and caps your synapses until there are only enough left for you to focus solely on the music. Inspiring as it may be, “s.y.b.e.r.i.a.” leaves a chill and I'm now cold and feel the need to sleep.

(Online January 3, 2007)