Twilight Transmissions - Temple of Abandonment

Christopher Alvarado is the man behind Twilight Transmissions, and he has quite the prolific career. He started up in 1985 when the punk scene gained steam in Salt Lake City. Though he has worked with quite a few other artists and has been a part of many different genre projects, Twilight Transmissions is his dark ambient and instrumental solo project.

Temple of Abandonment is his latest release under the Kalpamantrap record label, and was released earlier this month. Though the information about this album is sparse, and three of the tracks were made with a man named Jeff Duke, I took a look at it anyway.

The Catatonic Lover starts off the album with a drone like note that differs in pitch from low to high. The whispers in the song and the far off sounds makes it feel as if you're in a very open and dank cavern. As the song goes on, more sounds and noises are added into the fray till all goes quiet once more at the end.

Echoed Cries From The Hallway was the second song on the album and was the first to be collaborated with Duke. The sound from the previous song sort of carries over and doesn't really evolve all too much. There's some piano work that sounds like lower notes, and eerie effects come into play. At times, the ambient noise fills your ears so much it's hard to concentrate on the overall song.

Towards The End Of Nowhere is the next song and second collaboration with Duke. Echo effects are to be found within this one, as they come in and reverberate away before the next sound waltzes in. A light drum soon comes into play before eventually coming out in full force.

The Tranquilizing Chair had a harder drum to it without too much else going on in terms of background noise aside from a prominent digital distortion. I liked the drum effects, but I think the song could have boded better should it had stuck with more of a rhythmic approach.

I didn't really fall too much for Disquiet, as the majority of it was a boring drone song with very few and light effects in between the already sparse noise. Trepanation had a decent beginning to it that was creepy as Hell. It sounded like there was a baby demon somewhere in there. That effect keeps up, and, as the song went on, I wondered exactly what would be coming next in the song. It was lower than a few of the other songs in terms of sound, and I liked the faded drums.

As comfortable as a title as Bloodletting might be, the song was once more fairly quiet. Drums kicked in around the two minute mark to add a little love, and as they worked through, a more evil sound approached. I didn't think the song was interesting enough to extend the full eight minutes and forty eight seconds, though.

The final track, also the final collaboration with Duke, sort of was revealing to me. The titles of the song up to this point showed off that this Temple Of Abandonment could be compared to that of an insane asylum. And I didn't ick that up till this end song. And, if I'm wrong, then that's just how I interpreted it. Anyway, this was another drone like song that played with a singular main note that didn't do much for me. The ending made it a little better at around the ten minute mark when the drums came in to add a little tribal flavor, but that was about it.

Now, all in all, I like Alvarado's work. He did a nice job, and it doesn't sound like complete shit in terms of quality. However, the songs can be boring a lot from repetition. Some of the songs really didn't need to extend for as long as they did, and as I sat through each minute, I got antsy waiting for something new to come along. But, I will wait till his next release to see if I'll enjoy that.

Jun 21 2014