CVRVS is a heavy record, perhaps the heaviest All The Empires Of The World have ever produced. But this heaviness as multiple, plastic meanings. It begins quietly with the dying words of Goethe – “more light, more light”.
The first track Canticle is relentless, the kind of noise washed guitars and sheets of cascading sound we might hear in My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless, but filtered through doom and black metal – a terrifying barrage of clatter at an extreme BPM. The Dead Language begins with ritual shouting then, totally unexpectedly, a passage of unsettling and real calm – choirs and gentle picked intricate harmonics weave their way about – but in the vocals near total desperation lurks. This moment is just stunning, which is to say nothing of the post-rock ending it becomes. Closer Auckland offers some brief respite though, and reveals All The Empires to be every bit as adept at Six Organs of Admittance-esque acoustic magick as face-melting metal.
The second disc here, beginning with CVRSVS I is a different form of heaviness. Three instrumental pieces feel like the music for an uncompleted film: piano, synthesisers, deep room atmospherics and strings wash over oneiric and melancholic. Closest perhaps to Rachel’s Music for Egon Schiele in its intense, beautiful and reflective mood, there is such depth here, such heaviness that it requires repeated listening. The music here explores similar thematics and instrumentation across tracks, the three songs forming a cohesive and exquisite suite of music. Across two discs, this is absolutely exhilarating music.
Track List
- 1. Canticle (12.30)
- 2. The Dead Language/A Profound and Distressing Silence (9.13)
- 3. Paladin Curses (8.10)
- 4. Auckland (3.42)
- 5. CVRSVS I (6.01)
- 6. CVRSVS II (6.00)
- 7. CVRSVS III (8.00)
