Review Summary: Edgar Allen Poe takes the blackened doom metal reigns.
Summer is drawing to a close more quickly than anticipated. This is something I find myself thinking every new year more so than the last, and as for if that experience is bitter or sweet I have still yet to decide. On one hand it marks the coming of a season I love to pieces, but it as well marks a point of existentialism where I'm reminded of how brisk a year can be. This brings about an interesting point, that I think that our physical surroundings-the dissolving of seasons, the atmosphere of our own homes-has a greater passive impact on our emotional states than that which we often try to or even can recognize. Our personalities are intrinsically tethered to this natural bond; be it the fiery, bright and active nature of summer, the spritely and welcoming arms of spring, the lush and hypnotic elements of autumn or the frigid beautiful isolation of winter. Often these feelings that cannot be consolidated into words are expressed in beautiful artwork or in swirling compositions, be they melodic or dissonant or the shades in between. Wherein
Sequestered Sympathy lies in this spectrum is, to me, quite obvious. The season that is crawling upon us steadily, autumn.
Exulansis paint this theme in a myriad of ways. In the way song compositions crawl to their emotive climaxes patiently, mirroring the seasons patient decay. In the whistling shrieks that echo the soft but chilling winds of October (i.e, the title track’s ending). In the effervescent whirling of complex violin pieces that are both giddy and morose (if such a thing could make sense- “Barren” being a gorgeous example of such). As is the very nature of autumn itself, Exulansis (a word that describes the feeling of frustration being unable to express a pivotal moment in one’s life when another cannot relate) paint an image equally composed of love, despondency, and rage. As for the final one of this trilogy of emotions, the feverish chaos of violin work and tinny blast beats off of “Despondent” exemplify this incredibly well. It is such things as this that almost feel like they are writing a great Victorian tragedy, one of forbidden loves and murderous betrayals and great military sieges and villages plagued by disease. To say the least, it is a melodramatic record, but one whose attention to nuance and authenticity allow you to embrace this ethereal and hypnotic world.
The closest thing to a misstep off this record would be but a brief bout of some relatively dry vocal leads in the first half of “John Bradley”, however even this has a satisfying amateurishness to it that makes it sound as if a widow is mourning a recently departed lover, or perhaps a daughter or son. Definitely this rather minimalist track serves a purpose building up the pieces of this sprawling composition in spite of a slightly unsatisfying beginning, and that is to offer both respite and to bolster the upcoming trawling behemoth, “Dead Can’t Die”. Goofy song title aside, this condenses every wonderful facet of this record into a 12 minute epic that, in its first half, patiently crawls with soft china crashes, gentle acoustic scales and some icy violin compositions, partitioned by its second half with two lonesome croons only, a man and a woman, into blackened rasps and chaotic drum patterns that bring this love story to its destructive end. As the scarlet leaves are buried beneath snowy pillars, as soft chilly breezes escalate into blinding winter storms, the duality of seasons is sown. Their beauty, their warmth, their unforgiving and bitter natures, just as two impossible lovers whom lie hand in hand drawing together their last breath.
