Fauna - Ochre & Ash (2025) Review

Some years ago, I went on to put a few words together about Fauna's then latest and final album Avifauna, but was so oversatisfied with their own description, that I quoted them in full instead. This time, to urge you to visit their Bandcamp page and support this once in a lifetime kind of artistic entity, I won't take the whole text as is, but instead I'll define some important terms:

• Animism: The belief that natural objects, places, and beings possess a spiritual essence.
• Shamanism: A spiritual practice in which a healer or mediator communicates with the spirit world to guide or heal a community.
• Atavism: The reappearance of traits or behaviors from distant ancestral origins, often seen as a throwback.
• Ochre: A natural earth pigment, usually reddish or yellowish, used by humans since prehistory for art and ritual.
• Ash: The powdery residue left after something is burned, often symbolizing both destruction and the possibility of renewal.

The rest of my review, would actually be the Bandcamp description itself, and a 5/5 rating. That's all there is when it comes to this band's presence in black metal.

Extending much further than the conventional atmospheric or ambient black metal template, unfurling in long, organic movements that breathe 9000 year old air and with an overwhelming focus on the element of atmosphere, Ochre & Ash is a ritual for both performer and observer. You may have seen the words atmosphere and ritual being passed around with a light heart elsewhere, but this here is the epitome of their essence.

The album art itself nods: Cueva de las Manos, old hands stencilled into rock inside Argentina, some older even than agriculture. In that image lies the soul of Ochre & Ash, symbolizing the human animal as more than craft or survival, but belonging to earth, to spirit, to what endures beyond the blood-letting of time.

I often mention how the interludes are the first to skip in these albums, yet here they are stunning in their own right. Weaving field-like sounds, drones, and subtle textures that conjure the presence of forests, caverns, and the ghost of ancient ritual fires, they're as effective as the three main (and seriously long) compositions. 

Each one of these three, requires a separate post. Until then, I'll just say that there's no band in this sub style, that feels more real than this. And to think, we haven't even recovered from the return of Volahn last week, and now this...

Nature and madness

Rating | 4.5 out of 5 [Brilliant]

Fauna - The Hunt (2012) Review

While listening to The Hunt, only recently I realized that the release has been remastered, reworked and granted a tracklist, splitting the original one-hour long compositional into sequential parts. Live drums were recorded for the re-release, and the cover art was updated to what is seen below, making this record quite more accessible and at the same time, not putting any of its merit to jeopardy. It's easier to suggest The Hunt to someone when it consists of seven tracks, than one long piece, however the audience that has been molded into the band's work surely never had a problem with the immersive ambiance and repetitiveness of Fauna. 

As the originators of Cascadian black metal, in my opinion, this group resides on top of the ladder within this subgenre, even above the widely more popular Wolves in the Throne Room, offering listening experiences that are deeply introspective, unique, and simply mindblowing. The Hunt is the band's second album, and instead of describing it I will retrieve an answer from an interview found (and you should read all of it) here:

""Could you tell us a bit more about The Hunt, and any plans the band have in the near future?

“The Hunt” is a mythic journey into our ancient past, an exploration of the transcendent wisdom of hunting in all its ramifications. An attainment to totemic consciousness, we worked with the skins, bones, spirits and meat of our ruminant brethren, enacting a psychic journey from the hunger of our modern catastrophe to the rejoining of our animal selves to the flesh of another through the rite of consummation.

Thus sated, we moved on to our 3rd Cycle, known as Avifauna. For this chapter we worked with the bodies and the metaphor of birds, weaving owl, seagull and falcon into our world as part of an ascensional rite of flight and transcendence. Our 4th Chapter, undertaken in MMVIII, took us further into the Red Light of the Earth, and was performed thrice on Cascadian soil.

“The Hunt” has been reworked and will be re-released on Aurora Borealis on or around this summer’s Solstice. We will be recording and releasing our 3rd and 4th Cycles at some point in the coming years, and will be returning to the spiraling skyward that is “Avifauna” in live environments throughout the West Coast this year. We are also currently seeking assistance with a journey we wish to take on European soil this Fall.""

In this reply, Fauna also mention what would later be released as Avifauna in 2012, their most outstanding album and one of the best of its decade. I am not certain if the band is still active today, but Echtra, their vocalist / guitarist, has moved on with his own project of the same name. Bear in mind, that you would need to invest more time and attention before going into the material of this set of musicians, but it is rewarding all the way. 

Listen to The Hunt: