Review Summary: Hell of a trip.
The chalk connects and the room falls silent. Outside the cabin, the woods fall silent, too. Nothing is approaching.
Instead,
you
are
stretching.
Ethereal tethers groan as you pull further from the familiar, and further still into fiendish realms. The cries of the consumption priests begin to fill the room, now your own infernal
Nautilus set adrift in darkened planes. A final refuge, so long as the circle holds. Through the window you catch glimpses of the processions passing by amidst the fields of bones and sulfur, the realms of
To the Great Monolith III: Rifts. Plodding bass enforces the march as tortured screams and wails blend with malignant synths. They sound familiar but twisted, echoes of black, death, doom and esoteric metal, but all threaded together into an all-consuming soundscape sliced apart into five segments.
Ritualistic horns appear and vanish. The priests continue their chants. Every so often the soundtrack of hell falters and the cries of the still-living penitents cracks through, begging forgiveness for the damned. But from here, there is no escape for them – or for you, if your tether snaps. Time begins to lose its shape as you continue drifting. Choirs of condemned souls and ancient, vile entities intertwine creating terrifying, entrancing soundscapes full of pounding tribal drums, primal call and response growls.
Your time to leave draws near, but there’s still more to see. However, you notice that some of the scenes and sounds you’re witnessing begin to blend together. While still enthralling, it starts to feel somewhat familiar. Perhaps the voyage should have been terminated slightly earlier, although enough fresh scenes are witnessed to make the stay worthwhile. You ring the bell and feel your vessel return to living reality as an angelic chorale heralds your return to the world.
What just happened? You frantically scribble notes down. The overwhelming atmosphere lingers. While self-constrained within its own doomy bounds, the experience still managed to introduce enough novel, experimental and exciting elements to fascinate. At times the trip felt a little too similar to itself, but that can mostly be forgiven for the outstanding, ritualistic atmosphere it curated and its maximalist approach to immersing the voyager in the experience. Terrifying, awe-inspiring and impossible to abandon mid-trip, it’s a voyage you’d recommend to any initiate.
