Lucide is a split album from Time Lurker and Cepheide released via the ever-awesome les acteurs de l’ombre Productions (LADLO), a label about which we’ve waxed lyrical a number of times on these pages. Time Lurker is, in fact, a one-man band whilst Cepheide is a duo, although you’d not know this from the non-existent liner notes, the bands choosing to shroud their work in a certain degree of anonymity. However, whilst liner notes may be absent, LADLO have, as always, focused on creating a package that is as much a work of art as it is packaging, the disc housed in a beautiful, six-page digipak, clad in gorgeous, sadly uncredited artwork, and this is definitely something worth catching on CD if you get a chance. Boasting just three tracks and a thirty-four minute run time, Lucide is a great introduction to these two bands and their take on atmospheric black metal.
Opening with Time Lurker’s portion of the album, we get two tracks, both lengthy and riven with atmosphere. The first, no one is real is a slow-burning piece that takes its time to instil a sense of crippling unease before a harrowing, black metal storm is unleashed, shredding the listener’s fragile sense of equilibrium and sending them spiralling into an icy cavern filled with unearthly, echoing screams. Densely packed and washed in a heavy reverb, the result is strangely hymnal despite the blistering speeds at which the band play and the result is deeply hypnotic and surprisingly melodic for all the extremity that Time Lurker bring to bear. Time Lurker’s second track, instable night, announces its intentions rather more quickly, althoughthat same febrile sense of atmosphere remains. Once again, the piece is adrift on a sea of echo, making it unclear whether we’re listening to human voices or synth pads, and the resultant piece would provide the perfect soundtrack for a horror survival game as the character wanders lost and alone through a claustrophobic, fog-drenched labyrinth. Dark and disturbing, with original elements all of its own, the Time Lurker portion of this special, split release is stunning and the only criticism that its possible to bring to bear is that it does not last longer.
Cepheide offer up a single, nineteen-minute track (from which the album takes its name). A true epic, it lasts longer than Time Lurker’s two pieces combined, and the band make good use of the extended run-time to deliver a piece that is both compelling and strangely beautiful at the outset. Such simple beauty is short-lived, however, and soon the listener is cast deep into the heart of a spell-binding piece of music that ebbs and flows across a glacial expanse as harrowing screams are torn from the very wind. It’s a piece of music that echoes the symphonic grandeur of early Emperor, the pace a regal trudge as harmonies are wrenched from densely woven guitar riffs and lowering bass. It is harrowing, wonderful, beautiful and brutal all at the same time and it is far too much to take in in one sitting. A true masterpiece, lucide is ambitious, imaginative music at a time when so much seems stale and derivative and it is a mark of the band’s skill that the piece never feels like it is nineteen minutes in length no matter how many times you hear it.
Perfectly paired, it is quite impossible to choose which band delivers a better performance because each complements the other. A striking example of the continuing evolution of black metal into something truly otherworldly, lucide is another fantastic release from the increasingly indispensable LADLO productions and we can only hope that both bands have full-length releases ready soon. 9.5
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