Spectral Lore - 11 Days (EP, 2023) Review

Spectral Lore’s mailman Ayloss has been quite vocal about societal topics and issues on various platforms online in the past, but it had never really entered the thematics of this specific project, apart from maybe the cover of “No Excuses for Fascist Sympathy” by Book of Sand in a single release back in 2019. With his latest work, which is 43 minutes long but can still be considered an EP for Spectral Lore release duration standards, he takes a stand on a receptive and critical problem, that of established regulations regarding refugees in Europe. 

This time, the subject also contributes to the formation of the music, hence a concept release, with allegories drawn from references to various religions and mythological points and a suggestive artwork to go along with it. Musically, the play style of Ayloss is vibrant throughout the whole duration, laying somewhere between the more intense Spectral Lore patterns and the ferocity of a project like Mystras. In 11 Days, the composer manages to convey his anger through the tracks, as the material actually sounds more enraged and more irritated than in recent, more dreamlike albums (e.g. the phenomenal Ετερόφωτος from 2021). 

It balances between two black metal pieces and two dark ambient pieces with one of each type placed consecutively, providing an engaging experience of excellent story telling that can convey the spectrum of struggles it refers to. Opening with animosity and “Moloch”, the synth lines and samples of “Fortitude/Sunrise” can really drag the listener through the angst of being lost at sea with the way forward uncertain and the way back in ruins. “Adro Onzi” features middle-paced ominous guitar melodies that differ from the usual, perplexed fast riff handling of Spectral Lore, and the closer “Tremor/Kalunga Line” features narrating vocals, interlude sections that slightly remind of the prog, non-singing side of current Enslaved, and an almost warmhearted, more epic ending that can leave an aftertaste of hope instead of despair. 

11 Days is a remarkable release by an already remarkable musician, it contains the feel of Spectral Lore at a great form and picks a side. Perfect flow allows for these 40 minutes to feel like a much shorter time, and its more concise dimensions do not allow of any waste of content. Ayloss, as always, is more than capable of creating a work that speaks for itself, and on substantial ground.

Out on March 21st, 2023 | Stellar Auditorium Productions

DAMAGE: 4/5 [Excellent]

Spectral Lore - Sentinel (2012) Review

Release date: 2012
Genre: Ambient Black Metal
Origin: Greece
Label: Stellar Auditorium Productions
Listen: Bandcamp

And here is where Spectral Lore followed through. As if Ayloss was fully aware of the weaknesses of his previous works, a five year window is taken to fully fix and re-engineer the band’s sound into a new form that exposed the music for what it can truly be: perplexing, potent black metal with interesting lyrics and more distinct, spacey ambient oriented synths. One can tell how much inspiration must have been employed for Sentinel, which at the time was completely discernible from Spectral Lore’s previous albums, yet more of what we know them to be about today. Similarities to Mare Cognitum start to arise at this time as well, let alone the collaborations that followed, in the music as well as the stellar cover art.

The first two songs are everything you need. Well, and the last one. As some have described it as the milder side of the album, “Atlus (A World Within a World” in its thirty minutes of length, has impressively deep layered synths, a truly monster space ambient track that defined the project at the time and still is well ingrained in its name. While the staggering riffs in “All Devouring Earth”, and especially “The Dejection of Arjuna”, are always at the spotlight of Sentinel, it’s not just that which has been perfected in the album. The touching compositions bloom as the well-thought and structured guitar lines unravel, demonstrating how unique Spectral Lore is. One can find hints of French black metal, US atmospheric black metal, even – and very very slightly – traditional greek melodies, beautiful soloing, fine keyboard work and the production that a record as Sentinel would deserve.

In its own world, the conceptual follower would only come nine years later with Ετερόφωτος, as Sentinel has a very interesting story to tell with its lyrics. Comfortably between intensity and ambiance, it has a lot of characteristic and memorable sequences where Spectral Lore properly channel inspiration into the creative process. It’s almost impossible not to be amazed with the blistering tempos and riffs of “The Coming of Age”, or the melodies of “My Ascension into the Celestial Spheres” and how it gives way to the great outro. Most of Spectral Lore’s audience was obtained through this release, and how the band would soon get into the collective of atmospheric, space-related black metal bands with a clean, melodic sound (Mare Cognitum, Midnight Odyssey etc…). 

“Quest for the Supramental” is the only track I can’t seem to enjoy that much from Sentinel. While it has a few interesting guitar lines, it feels like its pending for too long and never arrives to a conclusion, at least not in the bombastic manner that it happens in other tracks. I would really appreciate the guitar work here in a different kind of release but just for me, this song doesn’t click that much with the flow of the rest of the album. A small price to pay for so many other great moments, Spectral Lore’s discography from then on reached the ears of the mainstream metal scene, and well deserved.

I wrote a little piece for the band's next album, and their most popular, III, back when it was released. This leaves us a with a few split releases, some singles and of course the latest full length, to have an overview of Spectral Lore. When the time comes.

Tracklist:

1. All Devouring Earth

2. The Dejection of Arjuna

3. The Coming of Age

4. Quest for the Supramental

5. My Ascension into the Celestial Spheres

6. Atlus (A World Within a World)

Damage: 3.5/5 [Great]

Spectral Lore - II (2007) Review

Release date: 2007
Genre: Black Metal / Dark Ambient
Origin: Greece
Label: Self-released
Listen: Bandcamp

A couple of points right off the bat, is that both the original and reissue covers look more beautiful than their respective predecessors of Spectral Lore’s debut album, I. A year later, II came out and it introduced itself (at all times, intrinsically rather close to the previous work) with a ducky acoustic guitar introduction and then a humongous, 24 minute long piece “The Thorns That Guide My Warpath”. At a first rapid listen, I didn’t know what kind of noisy sounds were jamming in its beginning aggressive part, which then turned out to be the drums, and that says a lot about the production of II, a record that sees Spectral Lore significantly putting their stuff together compared to the debut, yet aches from its burying sound. A lot of little gems to discover exist around in II, from emotional clean guitar melodies to more spacey ambient (a foreseeing of the chaos), but above all, more concentrated and adequate black metal.

There’s numerous intriguing lines in that first track alone, which could go for a separate little review on its own as it has the length of an average EP today, and even more than that. Vivid and playful acoustic in between more attacking grimness for the first nine minutes, post / atmospheric black metal drenched in soft pads for a while before the distortion returns, where Ayloss goes towards more epic guitar patterns of Spectral Lore’s own melodic repertoire. Harsh and serene intersect and swap with beautiful choreography, which makes this a piece that fully demonstrates Spectral Lore’s hunger for fully musical compositions with much more complexity and payload than the average metal track. Again, a proper production could do this much more justice than what it actually got, but by now the star had already started taking form and shining. A pattern starts to emerge: heavy melodies, taped with rich dark / space ambiance. Repetitive lines that go almost towards depressive black metal. Keyboard parts that a new listener would label today as “dungeon synth” inspired.

That’s what I am thinking while listening to “Towards the Great Crossroad”, “Recoiling Beneath the Waves” and “To Wither in Silence and Dismay”. Ayloss throws all his arrows at once with these pieces, in an album that sounds more confident and ambitious than its older sibling, but out of the same elements. Spectral Lore were never a typical black metal band, and II contains many more different branches than its raw sound suggests. There is less noise experimentation in II, and more layering, clearer ambient, clear even from the dreamy outro “Where Nature Won’t Ever Yield to Man”. The shortest track “Leaving the Stars Behind”, only three minutes long, could very easily be absorbed in a longer composition as part of it, but probably it has a separate meaning. The production baffles me the more I listen to it though, as guitars / guitar-like sounds, and different instruments, sound different at different points in the album, or at different volumes. 

Honestly, II is also another record I don’t go back to easily. It still seemed to me that with its abundance of ideas, it is not as concise as the circumstances demand, and the wall of sound is just another barrier. Nevertheless, noticeable steps forward were taken in just one year, the album – apart from my personal liking – has a bunch of neat moments for you to enjoy, if you like Spectral Lore and not under the umbrella of their later clearer sound. For me, from Sentinel and on is where the real magic happens, and where new levels are unlocked and achieved dominantly from Ayloss. Before 2012, what’s left for me is the history and its turns to acknowledge.

Tracklist:

1. Introitus 

2. The Thorns That Guide My Warpath

3. Towards the Great Crossroad 

4. Leaving the Stars Far Behind 

5. The Drone's Journey, Recoiling Beneath the Waves

6. Through an Infinite Dreamscape

7. To Wither in Silence and Dismay

8. Where Nature Will Not Ever Yield to Man

Damage: 3/5 [Good]

Spectral Lore - I (2006) Review

 Release date: 2006
Genre: Black Metal / Dark Ambient
Origin: Greece
Label: Saturnine Society (MC)
Listen: Bandcamp

Spectral Lore’s debut full length is very much not like material that followed later, and as this act has made itself famous with its massive and unique black metal sound today, back in 2006 things had not settled in terms of music or direction. I, was originally released in cassette, going along with poor production and primitive sound which, while already showing its compositional adventurous character, did not step that far away from the norm. Ayloss used hefty amounts of dark ambient, which also experimented more than just creating endless dusty pads, for example in the tracks “The Drowning” and “The Descent”. Unconventional noise-like compositions were also practiced not only in the introductory piece “Layers of Conception” (what a way to open an album”, but also in “Sigma Receptor”, having a sound equal to all the as-noisy-as-possible raw black metal bands of the underground today.

Unfortunately, the tracks in I are simply underwhelming in terms of ideas. While Spectral Lore presents lengthy tunes, for which it would later become famous, they are the weakest in this album, as it can be heard from the relatively boring guitar parts and transitions of the 13 minute long “Echoes of a Long Dead and Forgotten Place”. A lot of different ideas come into the game, indicating a clearly restless composer (no need to praise Ayloss even more), but the pieces have not be placed smoothly together in this puzzle. I feels more about him playing around until things click, and things clicked a bit later in Spectral Lore’s discography. The outro “Exodus” sounds completely out of place compared to the rest of the record, and “The Cleansing Rain/Morningrise in the Eternal Fields” overuses its natural samples, before an average middle to end part. Sounds come and go too quickly and nothing remains.

As a band that has achieved stellar levels of greatness since then, Spectral Lore’s early material are definitely worth a listen and should be part of the fans’ collections. This debut however comes off quite disoriented, with a noisy sound that is not helpful and very sparse good moments, if any. I appreciate the creativity that underwent this release, yet at this stage it wasn’t fruitful. I have returned several times to I, but the album has never managed to keep my attention except for only a handful of moments where it’s just interesting to hear the noise. Other than that, some more attention was brought to the record when it was re-released in 2015 on vinyl, with a beautiful cover art (the one shown above).

Tracklist:

1. Layers of Conception
2. The Drowning
3. Echoes of a Long Dead and Forgotten Place
4. The Descent
5. Sigma Receptor
6. The Cleansing Rain / Morningrise in the Eternal Fields
7. Exodus

Damage: 2/5 [Below Average]

Spectral Lore - III (2014) Review

Album | III
Country | Greece
Genre | Ambient / Atmospheric Black Metal
Label | I, Voidhanger Records

| In my dreamland, I am strong and unbending |

Spectral Lore is rightly of the best current projects in Greece, having a nearly decade-long, quiet and remote path with more than notable releases to date. This project of Ayloss is moving in strong atmospheric waves that inspires dreaming and thinking, making his music a fairytale, even spiritualistic. III is the fourth full album of Spectral Lore and approaching close to a half hour in length, divided into two chapters , making it as the longest album so far .

The skills and the talent of Ayloss can be appreciated if one has heard older material of the band, as well as if one is really in the style of bands like the Swiss Darkspace. With this new record, new principles are based in atmospheric black metal, coming from the combination of musical elements executed naturally and accurately, provoking all the feelings of the listener in it's duration. Where other bands tend to get tiring with one-hour releases, Spectral Lore show the comfort they have with their lengthy compositions and leave III to flow perfectly.

The disc begins with an intense riff in the introduction of "Omphalos", which transmits the necessary "blackness" from the first seconds. However, the songs here often change style, going into more epic or rejuvenating post-black lines, as in parts of "The Cold March To Eternal Bright" and "A Rider In The Lands Of An Infinite Dreamscape". The two instrumental tracks they also have their own personality, with the first "Drifting Through Moss and Ancient Stone", having classical acoustic guitar parts and even reminding of acoustic rock at the beginning, while the outro "Cosmic Significance" being a very beautiful piece of minimalistic ambient.

The variety in the vocals on each track , which draw influences from many different genres. There is a balance between screams, growling and measured clean vocals, offering the rest of the orchestration more strength and morale. The ambient and synth parts of the album play an important role in the atmosphere of the album, having a medieval connotation in some moments. The unique sound of Spectral Lore expands the horizons of the entire genre and the aural experience of III as a whole, is certainly worthy of praise . This album is innovative, interesting and staggering when it needs to be, undoubtedly the best offer so far.

| Bandcamp | Last.fm | MI |