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Band: Near Earth Orbit
Album title: End Of All Existence
Release date: 8 May 2015
Label: Solar Lodge
Tracklist:
01. The End
02. Abandoned World
03. The Warning
04. Observing The Sun
05. T.H.E.M.
06. Heat Death
07. Taken
08. Anybody Out There
"We’re not meant to save this world.
We’re meant to leave it!"
End Of All Existence is not an album about any kind of prophecy, it's an album that gives a dreadful message, it's a digital radio podcast broadcasted from the future and it transmits the inevitable truth about the apocalypse whose date is set, 16th March 2034. End Of All Existence is an audio visual work of art, an imaginary apocalypse movie transformed into sound by two of the most important goth rock artists, Artaud Seth (Garden Of Delight, Merciful Nuns, Lutherion) and Ashley Dayour (Whispers In The Shadow, The Devil & The Universe, Coma Divine,...). Not only the album itself, but as well the accompanying website showing the polluted grey and black satellite picture of the Earth with transmission codes from all corners of the earth, both tied together give the ultimate experience of the end of civilization as we know it, the extinction, the absolute misantrophy of the planet Earth. Everything managed and composed in such a fascinating style serving realistic visual/sonic experience that the listener will just like being there witness the end of his home.
Musically End Of All Existence is one of the darkest albums ever released, it's in no way a gothic rock album like somebody could imagine because of both names behind it, neither is some kind of occult dark ambient, "xy" wave album or anything like that, even if the elements of all those genres are all hidden there, but there's much more, it's hardly compared to anything you've heard before. Near Earth Orbit made music that in my opinion could be described as apocalyptic atmospheric doom goth wave transmission and even this classification can be a totally wrong one. It's in no way an easy album to get through, it needs a lot of time to grasp it in its totality, to get the proper experience that this work of art is giving to the listener. The music in some kind of a twisted way is very emotional, or at least the emotional character is rooted deep in its very essence. Seth and Dayour, both being occultists, know how to take the listener on a journey full of marvelous discoveries that will slowly, step by step, unveil before each one who'll dare to step into the maelstrom of End Of All Existence.
In a kind of a sick way album opens up with a dissonant ambiances and thumping drum kicks foretelling the ultimate end. With abrasive guitar chords churning all over the journey smoothly continues with perverse electro infused funky beats in "Abandoned World" that in a surealistic way gets so much power in the chorus. Thanks to the strong and so very mind penetrating vocals the message behind the lyrics gets delivered in a proper way. The similar story is with the next one, "The Warning", where buzzing reverberate guitars and thumping samples of folkish percussions make company to the psychedelic half speech that evolves into such a great haunting and powerful bombastic finale.
Now the message is about the humankind who has set the controls for the heart of the sun, as the sun continues to burn - "Observing The Sun"! The bewitching ambiance softly but in a horrid way transforms into a strong thumping doomy driven cataclysmic rhythm replenished with Arthaud's appaled voice and then takes the cinematic sonic transmission further into the hypnotic Trans Human Earth Migration - "T.H.E.M.". It's nothing strange that here and there you'll feel just like if the latest creations of Arthaud with Merciful Nuns and Ashley's ghost wave perversions in The Devil & The Universe are tied together with a pinch of nephilimian Mourning Sun atmospheres, the result is such a captivating soundscape that paints a picture of uncompromising loneliness. In its purest form it gets the perfect shape in "Head Death", the upbeat hard driving, almost crusty manace with mind blowing bass sequences, tuned down guitars and perfectly enriched with sparse synths and background cosmic electronics.
"We are the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End", is the first written line of the highly emotive and in a strange way catchy yet melodic "Taken". The perfect blend of deep tones, slow guitar melodies, amazing dramatic vocals, simply mesmerizing apocalyptic doom that gets sense only in connotation with the rest of the album that in such a complex way evokes the bitterness into everyone who is adventurous to take this visionary journey. End Of All Existence ends in a vivid surrealistic way with cinematic ambiances of "Anybody Out There". It has nothing to do with Pink Floyd, but yet it owes a lot to them. The last words we'll hear are extracted from the communication between the Mission Control Centre and Ashley Dayour from the outerspace just 3 minutes and 33 seconds before everything goes into ashes,..."OMG the apocalypse is fucking beautiful!" And then only silence...
The warning has been sent from the future and is only up to us if we'll take it seriously. Artaud Seth and Ashley Dayour gave us an audio masterpiece that is an instant cult. It opens up a fiction world full of questions about humankind's fate, its role in the universe and in some kind of a paranoid way delivers the ultimate truth. End Of All Existence is one hell of a complex album, it's still a rock album in its essence but it shouldn't be approached in a traditional way, so I believe that those of you who are more into dark ambient and similar sounds will have less problems in getting the whole thing the right way, but with saying this I must add that in my opinion this album is a must for every fan of anything dark in the music.
The world goes to sleep
Time to face the end
Deep endless blackness
Towards nothingness
Death in the end does not exist.
Review written by: T.V.
Rating: 9,5/10
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