ninehertz

Picture a group of people coming towards you in a darkened city centre, its not looking good, and you're scared, imagine that to be Glasgow, and the people are Black Sun. This, their latest platter 'Sacred Eternal Eclipse' is just horrible. I've heard of this band before and stuff about their live shows being quite confrontational, and listening to this its not hard to see why, coming on like a slowed down Cult of Luna, with an obvious Khante influence, and an almost Godflesh/Jesu pace to the proceedings, its loud, feedback drenched and the vocals are unrelenting and very scary indeed. Second track in particular is an endurance test in itself, titled 'Burn My Eyes' it relies on a pounding march to get its point across, the production is stark and rough sounding, but it definitely works for them, it has a similar feel to the harsher parts of the Today Is The Day's double-CD 'Sadness Will Prevail', grating like sandpaper at times, it's a bit of a struggle to not feel uncomfortable. Thankfully its not all screeches and feedback, as the slow-building 'Dumb Show' demonstrates, a very Isis-like ambient intro shows what Black Sun can do without the anger and harshness until again, the vocals cut through the air and we are back in dirge territory again. The DVD they have provided with the CD it has to be said shows this as well, the unrelenting noise seems to be the main attraction of their live shows, and they throw some pretty mean and menacing shapes as they do it, the drummer screaming as he pounds the toms is plain scary.

The whole harsh/driving aspect of this release however is all I can say for it, if you really want to get something other than catharsis out of this, you'll be left wanting, although brilliant, Black Sun seem to be hell-bent on repelling the listener with track after (long) track of caustic bile. The instrumental breaks definitely help to get the listener through the release, but at just under an hour, most will probably baulk at listening to it all in one go, approach with great caution, for this CD contains bleakness that many strive for, but few achieve.

To get a copy of this, simply contact them through their website below.