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Released on December 11, 2015 via Gilead Media
Yellow Eyes have been on my radar in a major way for a while now, their 2013 full length Hammer of Night left a significant lasting impression. This bands style of black metal is unpredictable in composition and played so exceedingly well that they prove themselves a cut above a lot of U.S. black metal bands, remaining to be criminally overlooked.
Their new album opens with a running theme throughout, the use of a woodland field recording that immerses the listener instantly and creates an instant mood that sticks with you throughout. The guitars and drums start in a flurry like a flash flood, tightly played yet constantly shifting in direction. This is the fundamental aspect of Yellow Eyes’ music that makes them so distinguished, it really weaves an intricate sound that leaves you trying to pick apart the track whilst remaining memorable.
This opener and title track is unrelentless until its final moments, once again abandoning the listener in this isolated setting as if waking from a night of violent storms and nightmares. Birdsong and wind chimes can now be heard, shifting the mood to somewhere between tranquillity and creeping fear.
The next storm cycle hits with ‘Streaming from the Undergrowth’, where again the swirling mix of drums, bass and guitars create dark yet stunning black metal disorientates straight through to the fading moment where the return to the creaking forest refuge prepares for the next tempest begins its descent.
‘What filters Through the Copper Stain’ then cascades through the atmosphere, solidifying its place as the true highlight of this record. The composition is so dizzying yet triumphant it’s extraordinary; this is the embodiment of the sound that Yellow Eyes has honed at this point. The relentless strumming and guitars that remain heavy and dissonant yet lead a journey of their own as Will Skarstad howls along with them. The incomprehensible flurry slows to a doom tinged halt before the listener is plunged into that damp, cold thicket once more.
Instead of another onslaught, a lone guitar plucks under the raining sky and sounds more sorrowful than anything displayed so far. From here the epic instrumentation begins to introduce ‘The Mangrove, the Preserver’, of which the guitar melody is nothing short of beautiful. The composition chops and changes in excellent fashion, continuing this bizarre journey the album has ridden through thus far.
The next two tracks continue the thunder storm right until the aftermath; the final track sees the return of the acoustic guitar being played under a cacophony of chimes and woodland wildlife that forges that finality after a brooding night and heavy rainfall.
Sick With Bloom, in sound and substance, is natural and pure in every way. It feels born out of the rotting leaves and earth at the foot of a dense forest, untouched and ancient. It’s this organic darkness that surrounds everything on this album that makes it completely unique and allows it to find the balance between beauty, enchantment and twisted gloom. Yellow Eyes are doing something special with their music and it would be a treasure long lost of it is passed up by lovers of the genre.
