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Released on October 31, 2014 via W.T.C. Productions
Black metal touted as orthodox, unorthodox, necro, symphonic etc. gives the listener an immediate impression of what strain of black metal you’re about to be subjected to. Ascension, self-identify as orthodox black metal, one that instantly brings to mind, at least for me, Deathspell Omega, Funeral Mist etc. and that’s some serious company to be aligned with. Fortunately, Ascension praises the gods of black metal cosmology with unwavering theistic dedication and disciplined execution, one that yields trance-inducing results.
Four years after their highly regarded debut, 2010’s Consolamentum, comes Ascension’s The Deathless Light EP. It acts as a precursor to their forthcoming second album, The Dead of the World, which is set to be unleashed on December 24th of this year. Judging by the two songs contained herein, it will be a monumental release.
The title track ‘The Deathless Light’, which is also to be included on the upcoming The Dead of the World album, blasts out of the speakers with cold, piercing precision. The icy, tremolo picked riffing and guttural vocals are augmented with a melodic, almost bluesy lead guitar that adds a nuanced emotional expression, however brief. The band slows it down for the mid section of this 8 and a half-minute, mini-epic. Throughout which, we’re subjected to a diatribe of philosophical blasphemies that rant against the dissonant guitar interlaced with subtle melodies that lead the listener back and forth, arguably between reason and religious ecstasy.
The second and last track on this all too brief EP, ‘Garden of Stone’, is exclusive to this release. It is a mostly mid-tempo, slow burn with hymnal overtones that allow one to contemplate the inner realities of passion and contempt invoked by Ascension’s liturgical sacrament to their religious cult. December 24, and The Dead of the World cannot come soon enough. Let the deathless light shine.
