Review Summary: The Angelic Process somehow manage to capture the musical experience of climbing your way out of hell and into heaven.
This is one of the most underrated metal albums I've ever come across; it may be a bit popular in some sections of the internet but I genuinely never see it talked about much at all, at large - which is a shame, considering the magnitude of depth this band brings to the table with this behemoth of a record. How could a fusion of drone metal, ambient noise and shoegaze possibly concoct something far more exciting than most metal bands have, especially in recent years? This record holds up astonishingly well.
The way the almost wailing-type singing is buried underneath these droning, fuzzy guitars mixed with this apocalyptic, suffocating (and, honestly, genuinely terrifying) atmosphere is some of the most overwhelming stuff I have heard in the genre as a whole. I know the term 'walls of noise' is a descriptor that is a bit overused - and I'm guilty of this- but when I say walls of noise, I mean it. It is genuinely baffling how well these furious guitar tones and these massive drumbeats combine so well with the already pitch-perfect production that the album also sports. It feels like it is going to beat you to death and leave you lying there, bleeding out on the pavement as it walks away while a thunderstorm is rolling in.
I don't think a record's album art has ever been so indicative of the music WITHIN it, either. It really feels like there is some genuine torment here, but it is displayed in like such an almost abstract format it's hard to grasp; you just know that it basically feels like the jaws of hell opened up and spit this record out from the deepest layer.
If I had to compare it to anything, I would be at a loss for words. I genuinely do not think I've heard anything that sounds like this before. The first time I heard this album it genuinely stressed me out just from how intense it was. The way the music blooms and explodes inside of your ears is so beautiful it's mind-numbing, and these sudden sounds that flourish are genuinely unexpected even when coupled with an ambient break. It's like during the whole duration of the record, it is attempting to ascend out from this miserable, hellish hole it has made inside of itself while we, as listeners, are only hearing the faintest cries for help.
This is one of those albums you only get once in a lifetime, but I don't think in all the time I have spent hunting for music to listen to that I've ever heard anything like this since first hearing it. It is so much like a deafening hellscape that just so happens to be one of the most gorgeous metal records out there.
