FROM THE BOGS OF AUGHISKA

From The Bogs Of Aughiska APOCALYPTIC WITCHCRAFT

Dark ambient meets Irish folklore poetry; a very different black metal debut.

If you are looking for music that transports you to some other, less fractious realm of existence then From The Bogs Of Aughiska may well be the answer to your secular prayers. Masters of a rich and evocative strain of pitchblack ambient, inspired and informed by the band’s roots on the bleak but beautiful west coast of Ireland, they have already been fully embraced by the extreme metal underground, but the prog world seems a much more natural fit for music as amorphous and contrary as this.

A welcome remastered return for the Irishmen’s debut album from 2009, From The Bogs… exists in a noticeably less kaleidoscopic realm than the more wide-ranging soundscapes of last year’s Mineral Bearing Veins. In contrast to that album’s startling detours into scabrous black metal, which would almost certainly alienate a decent majority of Prog readers, these five sprawling tracks reveal the primitive but potent first fruits of the band’s sonic explorations. Firmly in the darkest of ambient territory, opener The Great Sea

Stack At The Cliffs Of Moher could hardly be more evocative of its title: waves crash all around, underpinned by bowel-rattling, cavernous drones and rumbles that sound like hostile echoes from some horrifying, Lovecraftian entity lurking in the deep. Sustained for an invigorating eight minutes, it owes a sideways debt to

Sunn O)))’s frequency overload, but awash with Earth’s mysteries rather than anything more cosmic. Aos Si is even more mind-blowing: a 10-minute, incrementally evolving cocoon of shimmering low-end, skittering electronics and snatches of disembodied dialogue, it’s an act of fearless abstraction, atmosphere and disquiet wielded as lethal weapons of expression.

In contrast, Leabhar Gabhala Eireann is all visceral hiss and wind tunnel scree, the record’s most wickedly alien moment; Of Gods & Fighting Men is an electronic nightmare made manifest; closer Crosswinds is a climactic, dissonant and dramatic pummelling, like Popol Vuh channelling Merzbow.