Halgrath - The Whole Path of War and Acceptance

Quite a delicious project has jutted off the face of Cryo Chamber, that lovely label who so chooses to maintain their home in the dark ambient genre. And, coming from that pool of talent arrived Halgrath, a Russian solo project from Agratha Mirrait. As she sets forth in her description, much of her influences come from realizing that we, as people, are nothing to behold in a universe so endless.

And, just in January of this year, this woman released her second album on Cryo Chamber titled The Whole Path of War and Acceptance. Deep drones and her well sung chords bring out mesmerizing sequences that are hard to get out of your head once you're done listening to them. That, paired with this being a musical output of inner struggles after events in her life caused a transformation, commands a significantly emotional journey.

To start us off on this fantastic journey, Acceptance of Inner Self comes in with a slow drone that gradually increases in volume until it's overpowered by another that comes in with a brush of wind. From there, the song gradually gains a more atmospheric sound to it, almost sounding Holy in a sense, as the hissing from an unwanted creature comes into play. A few drops occur here and there, and towards the end of the song, a sort of rhythm escapes. This was a fantastic song, and I adored it.

Consecreation continues on this adventure with another deep drone sound, with help of a background synth that's higher in pitch, but also which adds onto the mysticism. As multiple effects add onto the deep built sound present, it feels as if you're exploring a cavern, one laden with unknown history, something that you can explore, and be the first to have explored. Nothing much changes in the song, and I normally hate that. But, for some reason, this track was good to me, and I liked it.

Third track into this song, Afflatus (Amanait Akhat) continues the drone tone, albeit, this is the first time we get a taste of Agratha's chords. Through the echo effect placed on them, as well as them just being uncanny, in a sense, a very ritual flavor is added to spice things up and keep it fresh. This song I would gladly revisit any day of the week.

Changing up once more, a bit of a tribal effect is added into The Opposite Mind and Mutuality with a nice drum effect and some chanting lyrics. Though the vocals do disappear for a time before coming back near the end for a brief moment, this song livened me up.

Cold Breath of Mountains did a fantastic job of rendering exactly what the frosty wind on whilst traversing a winter struck mountain would feel like. Very atmospheric, very spacious. It was one of those songs where you could just close your eyes and imagine yourself being exactly where the song wanted to take you; and there wouldn't be a single complaint about it.

Epic Journey and Oblivion brought a more melancholy tune, preferring a bit more instrumentation over pure drone. Cinematic in a sense, and very well done, I took a quick liking to this track.

Birds chirping amongst the sound of nature at the beginning of Deep Immersion and Repose immediately made me cheerful. The water running with what sounded like slight breaths and some drone tendencies brought forth perhaps the most healing song on the album. Towards the end of the song, it got a bit more noisy, as if this walk began in the morning, and ended in the darkness of the night, awakening a sort of fear.

Lastly, the final song, having a bit of a blunt take on what a human's soul might actually be, Your Sould is Just a Particle of Stars brought forth another drone track backed by faint vocals. A few tribal noises are added onto the end to boost listening value, and the song sends you off on a final farewell note as a drone quiets down and leads you back to reality.

Now, as of lately, I'd say that a few offerings that Cryo Chamber has put out hasn't really left a swell taste on my tongue, as a lot of the sounds coming from the label are just stale. However, this project really brought out something different and beautiful, and something that the label should be damned proud of. Her dark ambient, drone musical implementations mixed with her tribal styling crafted an absolute gem of an album. This is one album from the label that's offered on CD. I don't own many dark ambient releases on CD, but this is one that stands up above the rest, and also one that I hope I can get my hands on soon. Jul 03 2014