A storm welcomes the listener, voices shouting from afar, not to be understood, but to create a vision. A vision of people desperately trying to finish whatever it is they are doing in this weather, craving to go home, but not able to, trapped. This storm lasts 11 minutes and sets the mood for the whole split-cd.

New Risen Throne opens up with three tracks. Even though the act has allready released several tracks before, it still is a name not too well-known, probably due to the very limited quantities in which these tracks were released. The three tracks build up a tensed atmosphere by using bass-drones combining them with very subtle melody, tense percussion or dark samples. Very strong tracks arise from this, tracks that remind me of Raison D’etre above all others, though sometimes it also is Coil that comes up. New Risen Throne, when it keeps on releasing tracks of this strength deserves to be compared to them, though it might lack variety when it comes to a full album.

Cruel Harvest is a new act, the four tracks on this cd are the first tracks they ever released as far as I know. Starting out with a track that is full of surprises and melody (for darkambient music that is), they seem to build tracks with high numbers of layers, merging the layers into a dark atmosphere that is not creepy as much as it seems to be the setting for a dark adventure. Then again this is only the first track, the other three tracks are more in line with the New Risen Throne tracks, more minimalistic. In fact many times they even seem to be too minimalistic for my liking. Tracks that do not yet have the gripping effect New Risen Throne has, but that can grow and make one feel quite uneasy indeed.

This CD for sure is worth a listen for every dark-ambient fan. New Risen Throne is an act that deserves to be on a big label and Cruel Harvest is an act with high potential, though it might need some extra polishing first. For people who like their dark-ambient more minimalistic this might allready be top-notch as well.

Author: Ikecht. Published on: Tuesday, July 19th, 2005.
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