WKN 2019
Wish I Weren’t Here
Austrian ensemble embrace immaculate concentration to will their dark desires into existence.
This record comes with a warning, requiring an altered state of mind from the listener eager to fathom its expanse – only the expanse is microcosmic now, not external as the scope of 2018’s "What Makes You Pray" and a few other Albin Julius’ albums. If such change of approach should focus and intensify the music’s message, the band’s mission’s accomplished quite impressively, as psychedelic aspect has taken over aural assault, regardless of how slow or molten the latter used to be.
This time, living up to overall agenda, opener “Evil” is spun in twangy waves to mitigate the melody’s sinister dirge which wraps shamanic chant in sheets of white noise – as opposed to blackness behind “My Soul Rests Free”: the heaviest and gloomiest piece on display whose electric squall is genuinely disturbing, unlike “Forgotten” where metal disco will reign supreme. But while multiple strings and mighty groove make “Make Me See The Light” roll blissfully, yet wildly, and “He Is Here” lets bass shatter the room, the title track has spoken word applied to purified space rock for guitars to throb in anticipation of raptures unknown to man and for the refrain to suggest escapism rather than exit towards the equally pulsating realm of “All One” that promises delights to arrive.
It’s a delicious work anyway, so it’s good to be here. Another whiff of varied vigor, and the Austrian collective might deliver their magnum opus.
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