I'm going to cover both of Russian act All Will Gather To The Shores' releases. This is their first release, Their Bodies Clutter The Sea.
Drone and ambient work well with psychedelic. The visual aspect of psychedelic has always been the main draw, and as I'm finding out now, the main draw for drone, ambient, and noise. Unlike most purely electronic or synthetic ambient or drone, All Will Gather To The Shores utilize subtle and limited strings and extremely distorted, low-mixed vocals. The latter pop up infrequently, and on this release only on "Gale" and "Calm." "Gale" is appropriately the least soothing with its noisy, distorted looping and dissonant chord transitions. As a concept it serves quite nicely, although it isn't the most compelling track.
Follow up tracks "Hope" and "Despair" are two sides of the same coin with "Hope" being guided by relatively peaceful string sounds. It's nice coming from "Gale" but since the track is barely over a minute "Despair" slowly kicks in, which is surprisingly less melancholy than the name. It's a lackadaisical track, like basking on the sun-baked deck of a ship left adrift after a monstrous storm. "Calm," the longest and most acutely developed track on the album is much more solemn in its development. The soft strings kick in before the vocals do - as harsh and distorted as ever - until they fade to light guitars and a droning outro.
The guitar tone is of note on Their Bodies Clutter The Sea. It's doomy, heavy, and distorted, and the higher register notes sound like the audio interpretation of sun rays beating down onto sunburnt backs. In a way, Their Bodies Clutter The Sea almost evokes a desert image in that regard.
A solid, but slightly underdeveloped taster of the sound that would await on Deity Of Ruin.
6.5 out of 10
Tracklisting:
1. Gale
2. Hope
3. Despair
4. Calm
Bandcamp
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