Arson Cafe: Arvalastra - Meditation on the Lunar Steppes Review

Monday, February 06, 2023

Arvalastra - Meditation on the Lunar Steppes Review

A fairly unique underground entity from Bilbao, Spain, the project of Arvalastra has been active for the last six years with numerous releases and now counting five full length albums. Its meditative, occult presence is accompanied by a particular but not completely novel (Necromantia, Barathrum) compositional approach: no guitars, only bass. Such is the groundwork for Meditation on the Lunar Steppes, which has been developed only through electric and acoustic bass, drums and vocals, a rather simplistic but in this case, quite efficient setup.

Arvalastra manages not only to construct the monotonous, think drone / doom metal atmosphere it goes for, but it also serves its purpose conceptually, as Meditation on the Lunar Steppes has fully compatible music for the journey it wants the listener to take. The tracks are slow, introspective and drained out of unnecessary energy, boasting quite a full sound even without the use of guitars, often reminiscent of depressive black metal templates, but one should not get the wrong impression when reading this. A couple of interludes (“Celestial Orbs” and “Crepuscular Dusk”) are short, minimal and haunting, fixing the different pieces of the album together nicely.

Convoluted existential topics of deep philosophical concern are discussed in the album, which ultimately makes itself not a walk in the park to go through in case one decides to dig a bit deeper. Meditation on the Lunar Steppes lasts 50 minutes, and 21 of those are occupied by the massive closing piece “Towards Aurora”, which contains the more black metal side of the record, followed by a quiet instrumental and funeral doom ending.

“Saturn’s Scythe” and “Æthēr Primigenium” are fitting gloomy doom metal pieces and only “Salarmoniack” is a more middle-paced track in its entirety, compared to the overall slowness of this meditation. As a whole, Arvalastra have not changed much since their last or any release, and this new record has exactly what it goes for, not less or more. Not for the average doom metal or black metal fan, it will be appreciated by people that prefer more “lethargic” material, be it DSBM, funeral doom or dark ambient. And it definitely comes with topics to think about.

DAMAGE: 3.75/5

Listen:
Bandcamp

Release date: 03 Feb 2023 (His Wounds)

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Reckoning

From all the hills came screams. A piece of sky beside the crescent sun was detaching. It was a loosened circle of evening sky, suddenly lighted from the back. It was an abrupt black body out of nowhere; it was a flat disk; it was almost over the sun. That is when there were screams. At once this disk of sky slid over the sun like a lid. The sky snapped over the sun like a lens cover. The hatch in the brain slammed. Abruptly it was dark night, on the land and in the sky. In the night sky was a tiny ring of light. The hole where the sun belongs is very small. A thin ring of light marked its place. There was no sound. The eyes dried, the arteries drained, the lungs hushed. There was no world. We were the world’s dead people rotating and orbiting around and around, embedded in the planet’s crust, while the earth rolled down. Our minds were light-years distant, forgetful of almost everything.