“Faces twist in the mirror, familiar yet grotesque, and the echo of footsteps behind you never quite matches your own. As the world succumbs to night, terrors seep from the cracks of consciousness, pulling you into a chasm where the air is thick with silent screams and unseen hands claw at your sanity”, so reads the promotional notes on the album's Bandcamp page.
Heading into the festive season its safe to say that this isn't going to be a record one will be listening with their nearest and dearest, a holiday usually marked by mass consumerism, sappy Hallmark TV movies, and gluttony. What with the creepy cover-art, this was never going to be in the same camp as Mariah Carey and Wham, thank god.
The artists who perform on the record's two tracks (making it a true collaborative effort) are, She The Throne, an anonymous Manchester (UK) duo whose previous works include 2022's Whisper a Red Voice, 2023's Orion and Nuntis also from 2023. I actually reviewed Nuntis for The Sleeping Shaman, a work which I view as their strongest to date. The Slumbering who I'm less familiar with is Keller, Texas (US) based artist Clint Listing, whose work includes 2021's Looking for Sorrow Within Ones Fear, 2022's End of Mortal Will, 2023's When we Forget it Repeats and the Murdering Panda EP earlier this year. Clint's a music lifer with numerous bands/projects to his name and who also happens to run a fantastic Youtube channel called The Doorway To which sees him both reviewing some of the underground's latest releases as well as conducting the odd interview here and there. At the time of writing he's been shopping around for a label for his self described Noisy Industrial Metal band Operation Suffocate, let's hope he was successful. Anyway, onto the music...
'Daymares' the longer of the two pieces at over twenty five minutes, is awash with haunting, disembodied groans and desperate Electronic bleeps (interjected throughout at various points), mirroring the image painted by the track's title, of an individual desperately attempting to claw themselves out of the literal 'daymare' in which they find themselves. The track also has some tasty Industrial, dub and Trip-Hop elements indicative of the sounds I had been so enraptured by on Nuntis and which are brilliantly complimented by Clint's dark slabs of Lustmord inspired Dark Ambient goodness. 'Night Terrors' features the harsh noise of its predecessor (think along the lines of Whitehouse and Bastard Noise) but with the addition of some Classical vibes and beautifully dreamy Drone influences ala Earth and Sunn O))). Out of album's two tracks I have to admit to this one standing out more, its dare I say, more melodic and I use that term lightly. This sense of relative peace is shattered roughly halfway through however with some truly harrowing screams; and while I've like a lot of people had bad dreams from time to time, nothing has quite elicited this level of response. Just when you were getting comfortable a spanner is thrown into the works. But when the results are this sonically satisfying, it feels seamless and natural as opposed to jarring.
As both a long-term fan of She The Throne and a newbie to The Slumbering the former delivered as per usual whilst the latter impressed. This isn't an easy listen, if you want that then you have The Foo Fighters waiting for you, but for those lusting for something more challenging, then purchasing a copy of Daymares & Night Terrors is highly recommended.
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