Hailing from France, Year Of No Light are a post metal act currently signed to the mighty Pelagic Records (The Ocean Collective, Arabrot). New album, Consolamentum is the band’s first fourth studio effort (and their first for the label) and it arrives in tandem with a suitably lavish boxset (also via Pelagic) housing all of the band’s work to date in celebration of their twentieth anniversary. A sprawling, oft-unnerving epic, Consolamentum comprises just five tracks, despite its fifty-five-minute runtime, with each piece exploring a dark world of malevolent ambient and heavy sludge.
Existing in a world where Bass Communion and Cult of Luna regularly top the charts, Year Of No Light allow their compositions the time and space necessary to grow organically. Opening number Objuration is a perfect case in point. With the first three minutes lost in heat haze ambience, it is only after a suitable period comprehensively reordering the listener’s nerve endings that the band allow a corrosive sludge riff to enter the fray. The piece unfolds slowly, the monolithic central riff proving to be nothing more than a canvas upon which the band daub a variety of motifs over the course of the track’s twelve minutes. A beguiling opening track that says more in the absence of lyrics than any rhyming couplet ever could, Objuration perfectly sets the tone of the record – beautifully produced, intelligent and cinematic in scope – and the quality remains exceptional from there on. A subtler piece, Aletheia slowly builds a sense of mystery and even awe as rumbling toms cascade over rip[pling post-rock guitars reminiscent of Mogwai Fear Satan, with the same attendant sense of grace, for all the sonic firepower being deployed. Interdit Aux Vivants, Aux Morts Et Aux Chiens offers no such concessions. Ominous from the off, it’s a track mired in the sort of brutal riffing that made Khanate a feared name in the metal firmament. As the piece progresses, however, so the band imbue it with a sense of dark melody, allowing hope to creep in amidst the obsidian riffs, making for a truly stunning piece of music that is almost classical in its ebb and flow. Immensely powerful, it’s one of those rare pieces of music that makes time stand still, and for those seeking out raw emotion, the goosebumps that accompany the song’s climax will let you know that this is music to feel at least as much as it is music to which you should listen.
Another lengthy piece, Realgar clocks in at just shy of thirteen minutes. As with its forebear, however, you’ll barely notice the time disappearing. It starts gently, the drums providing a taut framework over which the rest of the band slowly weave their webs. Beautiful, yet with a sense of impending threat, the piece does not wait long to explode into fragments of light, the guitars imploding, only to coalesce once more as the band bob and dart between the beat. Closing the album, the dark, downtempo Came paints a moodier picture, with its somnolent beat and ever-shifting synths slowly blossoming into something brighter and bolder than the opening implies. Once again, it’s the way the guitars weave around one another, the band sharing an effortlessly intuitive grasp of where they each want to take the music next, while the listener follows along on the journey, wide-eyed at the majesty of it all. It’s truly inspiring, and the final proof (as if any more were needed) that this is not so much an album as a work of art.
Consolamentum is music in which to get lost. It’s a new world, painted in shimmering colours on sonic cloth, and not a moment on the record is wasted. It’s cathartic, beautiful, haunting and haunted, and it leaves the listener feeling refreshed, as if drawn out of the every day and left to roam the wilderness. Beautifully played and produced, it is nothing less than a masterpiece and a wonderful celebration of the band’s two decades to date. 10/10
