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Band/Artist: Lamia Vox
Album title: Alles ist Ufer. Ewig ruft das Meer
Release date: 1 August 2020
Label: Cyclic Law
Genre: Dark Ambient, Neoclassical, Ritual, Martial
Tracklist:
01. Three Dreams
02. Eternity
03. Dionysus
04. Song Of Destiny
05. Animus
06. I Call The Stars On High
07. The Return
Even though that this album was released five months ago I can't sleep in peace if I don't write some sentences about it, since it is absolutely my favourite one of the dark ambient releases this year. Lamia Vox, used as a stage name for the Russian artist Alina Antonova, who now lives in Prague (Czechia), delivers her third full-length opus titled in English translation as: 'Everything is shore. The sea calls forever', after the poem by Gottfried Benn. This is a surreal piece of dark musical art and dark poetry with a strong spiritual message, a counterblast, an antagonism to the rationality and greedy materialism of the post-theist and nihilistic age.
Lamia Vox is often considered as a dark ambient artist, but I can't really agree with just that. It's not that simple, and many could get scared because of this classification and can miss out something grandiose. Sure that her music has elements of dark ambient, but here's much more. I guess that you already know her previous album, Sigillum Diaboli, released back in 2013. That dark sonic art became a cult release within the genre, and I consider it as one of the top 10 dark ambient (if I can say so) albums of all times. Now with the long-anticipated Alles ist Ufer. Ewig ruft das Meer, Lamia Vox changed a lot of things. The soundscapes became more musical, ritualistic, there's much more place for vocals, and yet for varied influences that came in form of mystical oriental hints, neoclassical additions, martial beats and gothic atmospheres, to mention just some.
From the murky opener "Three Dreams" on, we are thrown into some kind of another dimension, into a dark world beyond the human sphere. It's like a witchery, a meditation, a surreal mystical place in a dreamland, full of symbolism, horror and gloom. There are many layers and for some, I don't know if those are field recordings or just well-used samples. The second track "Eternity" offers kind of Dead Can Dance reference, replenished with hypnotic martial percussion, soul-provoking dark drones, and half-spoken soothing ethereal dark whispered vocals. "Dionysos" follows a similar way, but it's a little bit more sparkling due to the sound of dulcimer.
The album then takes a turn into more neoclassical, a bit more gothic ambiences while keeping the dark mood and brooding atmosphere at its maximum. One of the stand-out tracks is "Animus". Gentle melody intertwined with strong pounding martial beats, and first time heard Lamia Vox's ethereal hypnotizing singing. Those delicate dark atmospheric synths slowly and carefully swallow the listener into this sonic maelstrom of pure bewitching divinity. "I Call The Stars On High" is another strong ritualistic experience that brings in mind Anastasis of Dead Can Dance, and the closer "The Return" is pure perfection in dark music. In here we can hear for the only time also male vocals, and beautiful male/female duet that brings shivers down the spine. The only problem is that everything ends too soon and you are forced to wake up from this dream rather sleepless.
Alles ist Ufer. Ewig ruft das Meer is a masterpiece, evocative, deeply melancholic, in a strange way erotic, sensual, it is captivating and hypnotizing. There's kind of mysticism and liberating lawlessness that is opposed to the sterile rationalism. This is dark musical esoterism in its purest form. The creativity, divine madness and metanoia as a form of ultimate salvation.
The review was written by Tomaz
Rating: 9,5/10
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