Genre: Dark Ambient/Doom Metal

Track list:

01 Induality, Not Induality
02 In The Insane Dance Of Stars
03 Kense
04 New Aeon

Opaque lucidity, a band from the Russian Federation plays some atavistic linkage with its thematic through his own name, a continuous splendour from black and white tones and lack of colours, in a way an immersion into deep, dense waters where the only rays of light inconsistently give form and contours to the things that inhabit its abyssal profundity, a partial knowledge on reality is referenced with their amalgam of psychological insights mixed with the occult, a place where no certain answers are available nor certainty asserts its concrete verdict. This scrutiny into the mystery of the mind and the cosmos presents the dilemma of the arcane truths that has been evidenced by the ancients, the human psyche is the ultimate reflection of the “great mystery” that is the creation. The puzzle’s answer lies within the self as a hidden treasure. The music from Opaque Lucidity guards part from this insight in their slow movements and clair oscur contours, portraying a darkness that reminds mysterious and menacing while the ambience progress and makes everything apparent for a while. Opaque Lucidity is composed by Anton also member from the black metal ensemble Noctambulant Orchestra, Nikita from the Doom Metal based Aglaomorpha and Evgeniy & Artem from Risus Sardonicus, all bands from the Russian scene.

The very first thing that unveils with this self titled album is the extraordinary slowness from its course second to its deepness and overly obscure tonalities, all this is quite normal and kind of common for a Doom centred album but in here the atmosphere plays a special role for each track development. With uttermost simplicity the cacophonic frame conjured by single dense and vibrant guitar chord spreads its atmospheric veil, curiously these unpolished and discordant notes lack any empathy with riff or melody, the guitar generally throws just a note that resounds in its potency and then fades away amidst the vacuum from vaporous drones and cavernous layers accompanied by subtle synthetic unfolds and the typical Doom ridden growls from the dual vocalist set but its important to highlight that all these elements form a structure in its own rather than a mix of them creating a wholeness. As the drones set in demarking the side for Dark Ambient and the low tuned growls crawl beneath them and then the guitar erupts with their monochromatic blasts every part becomes discernible and somehow distanced from each other, as if they were intended to be separated by an invisible distance. Each element creates its own ambience and only within the context of the thematic one may understand this finality. The wholeness is made by parts and these parts are rather independent. Traces from melody are found in “Kense” and “New aeon” as synth introits that fuse with the atmospherics.

Voice plays a major role for the record perhaps as a mandatory necessity to link the record with Doom dynamics, this is guessed right to some degree, as they give its characteristic catacomb like texture but sometimes and with the total lack of percussion, harmonies and just ambience to accompany them, they simply decay in its simplicity. The atmospheric contours are dark and depressive and navigate pretty well in the sea of oblivious obscurity and shades of light but perhaps the repetitive unfold becomes quite a norm after a while and only the fire effects from “New aeon” brings different routes. All in all their idea is well conceived, an amalgam of Dark atmospheres, organic drones, layers of synths and guttural miasmas, they will have to decide whether to subscribe to Doom by adding part of its harmonies and slow rhythms to the core of the atmospherics or if they just want to experiment the ambience minus the Doom parts that limits their experimentation. Both could be a great consolidation but needs to concrete more synthesis and middle grounds to seed in.