Esoteric - Subconscious Dissolution Into The Continuum
Season of Mist - SOM085CD - 2004
By Paddy Walsh
Subconscious Dissolution Into The Continuum requires a certain headspace to enjoy. It is DOOM in the purest sense of the word; hulking, painfully slow riffs, overset with all manner of tortured growls and screams. Not for the faint of heart, then. Definitely not, in fact, as Esoteric have crafted a set of songs that can be pretty disturbing at times.
The music has an almost drone-like quality to it, as the riffs seem to segue into each other. This is perhaps the effect of such trance inducing sounds, as it really does go right through you. It is music to get lost in, and the suffocating heaviness of the material rarely offers the faintest glimmer of hope. The opening lead guitar lines of 'The Blood of the Eyes' almost does this, but soon descends right back down into the quagmire that had prevailed on opener 'Morphia'. A clever way to pull at the listener's emotional strings even more perhaps? 'Grey day', the longest song on the album at over 17 minutes, is the closest Esoteric get to shifting the tempo up a bit, using a surprisingly varied menagerie of riffs that twist and turn, but always remain despairing. The vocals of Greg Chandler are worryingly effective. He growls, shrieks and screams as if he were being tortured by Satan himself.
Esoteric offer us a trip into the depths of hell, laying before us their vision of what awaits in the afterlife, and it ain't pretty. However, it is completely captivating, perhaps for all the wrong reasons, and that's what makes Subconscious Dissolution Into The Continuum such a entrancing listen from start to finish.
8.5/10
Esoteric Official Website
Season of Mist official Website
Season of Mist - SOM085CD - 2004
By Paddy Walsh
Subconscious Dissolution Into The Continuum requires a certain headspace to enjoy. It is DOOM in the purest sense of the word; hulking, painfully slow riffs, overset with all manner of tortured growls and screams. Not for the faint of heart, then. Definitely not, in fact, as Esoteric have crafted a set of songs that can be pretty disturbing at times.
The music has an almost drone-like quality to it, as the riffs seem to segue into each other. This is perhaps the effect of such trance inducing sounds, as it really does go right through you. It is music to get lost in, and the suffocating heaviness of the material rarely offers the faintest glimmer of hope. The opening lead guitar lines of 'The Blood of the Eyes' almost does this, but soon descends right back down into the quagmire that had prevailed on opener 'Morphia'. A clever way to pull at the listener's emotional strings even more perhaps? 'Grey day', the longest song on the album at over 17 minutes, is the closest Esoteric get to shifting the tempo up a bit, using a surprisingly varied menagerie of riffs that twist and turn, but always remain despairing. The vocals of Greg Chandler are worryingly effective. He growls, shrieks and screams as if he were being tortured by Satan himself.
Esoteric offer us a trip into the depths of hell, laying before us their vision of what awaits in the afterlife, and it ain't pretty. However, it is completely captivating, perhaps for all the wrong reasons, and that's what makes Subconscious Dissolution Into The Continuum such a entrancing listen from start to finish.
8.5/10
Esoteric Official Website
Season of Mist official Website
