Doom Metal, Drone Metal, Metal

[B O L T] – [B O L T] vs. Morasth (Review)

Artist: [B O L T] / Morasth
Album: [B O L T] vs. Morasth
Genre: Doom Metal / Drone
Country: Germany (Duisburg)
Release Date: 22nd of November, 2019
Released via Dunk!records
Cover Artwork © [B O L T], 2019

[B O L T] and Morasth are two German Drone/Doom Metal bands. The first one is from Duisburg, my hometown, and the latter from Mainz. Both can be heard on this split release. One side, one song, one band. Nontheless we have nearly 40 minutes of playtime, nearly twentyone and a half minutes by [B O L T] with the track “[06]” and about nineteen minutes by Morasth‘s “… Ut in Caligine Terrae Resiam, Tamen Patria Aether Manet”

Both bands just play “music” with their instruments, there is no singing. But why now the quotation marks around the word music? In my opinion, music is defined as the combination of rhythm, melody and harmonics, but what we can hear here is different… Drone. Bass and guitar give us a static sound, while the drums are responsible for the accents. It’s a completely different kind of art, and shouldn’t be compared to regular music. You can’t talk about great riffs and licks, you can’t talk about interesting rhythms. And exactly that is the biggest problem with writing a review about this kind of art.

I needed a few trys until I got a feeling for this album, I asked my girlfriend for her opinion… and she told me about her feelings while she listened to it, and not about what she heard.I think that this is exactly the way how to get to the “music”. It’s somehow like dancing. Have you ever seen ballet? Can you imagine just to watch somebody dance, without hearing the music? Somehow you will get some kind of information, you can connect to the movement, the facial expressions of the dancer, and you start to create the music in your head, you start to think about what the dancer feels, and you start to create a story in your mind, your story.

So the story in my head will or can be a completely different one from the one the musicians got in their mind while playing it, and every listener will have another story in her or his mind while listening to these songs. However, I think there is no correct or incorrect story, because they are made by your feelings, by your imaginations, by stuff you experienced by yourself in your life. So as you can read, I’m getting quite philosophical.

This is a very theatrical kind of “music” that tells us a story. The drums show us the movements, the dynamics, they narrate. Each side of the album is telling one part or one side of the story. We have one dark side, a threat is built up, it’s coming nearer and nearer, until a certain hunt starts. That’s what “[06]” makes me think of. Just listen to the part starting around minute 11. But I think the hunted was able to get away, out of breath, hiding…

“…Ut in Caligine” uses different sounds, it starts dark and threatening as well, but somehow I get the feeling that it’s brightened up throughout the song. It feels like a struggle, a ringing, a fight… and in the end, salvation. The sounds are getting cleaner, brighter, as if the sun rises, and the light rescues you from the dark.

So this isn’t a review, it’s more some kind of interpretation, some kind of description of my feelings while getting to the music.

To be honest, I don’t want to rate this. It was hard to get into, and it’s not right to compare this to other songs/albums/bands because it is a complete other form of art in my opinion. Give it a chance and try to let you go. I’m interested in your stories and images.

As usual, we added the favorite track(s) to our Transcended Review Playlist 2020.

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