Unearthly Trance ‎– Season Of Seance, Science Of Silence cd

It was on a cold December day of 2003 that I bought the debut of Long Island's faves Unearthly Trance, after having already been mindblown by the Frost Walk With Me 7" and the amazing Beast Eye Open To The Sky LP by side project of singer/guitarist Ryan Lipinsky, Thralldom, and I remember listening to it non-stop during the Xmas holidays. While in later albums Unearthly Trance would adopt a crustier and tighter approach, with more elements by black metal and hardcore, in this one they are in a spiral of heavy-like-hippo-shit doom/sludge, with undertones of black metal and drone, doses of Celtic Frost goodness, and even ritual black ambient. Coupled with a lo-fi, but strong on the bass, production by Stephen O' Malley, this is one of the best doom/sludge albums of all time, and one that again arguably proves that Relapse can turn otherwise promising bands into more mediocre outfits when they manage to get their little corporate hands on them. The slow crushing riffs, the spacious production, and Lipinsky's desperate clean vocals, as well as his sinister rasps, proved an ideal showcase for one of this blog's dictums on your right hand, the one saying that good music is the music that makes you fall asleep, and this is what this album did many a time during cold and bleak wintry days. Highly recommended, up to par with Electric Wizard's Let Us Prey, Cathedral's Forest of Equilibrium, and Winter's Eternal Frost. 2003 cd on Rise Above Records.Download