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Daal - Decoding The Emptiness CD (album) cover

DECODING THE EMPTINESS

Daal

 

Eclectic Prog

4.19 | 78 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

alainPP like
4 stars DAAL's vintage sound on keyboards creates a lush atmosphere made of layered musical overlays that goes beyond basic RPI, with Scandinavian overtones in their tracks, featuring soaring metal, stoner, and classical instruments.

"Decoding The Emptiness" opens with a heavy, apocalyptic edge; one of the two vocals with Joe for the gloomy symphonic title track, a viscous time organ imprinting the desperate atmosphere. The basic drums accompany the Mellotron between KING CRIMSON and the soaring first GOBLIN, the tortured guitar in the background. A final melting bell, austere, metronomic. "Attic Clouds" begins electronically, redundant and hypnotic, with a dark atmosphere and an expressive pad; the organ brings a sound filled with sadness and desolation. Ettore launches his plaintive guitars, reinforcing the dark air worthy of Crimson's "Red." Bobo plays his metronomic bass, distantly reminiscent of the work of some of the soundtracks of TANGERINE DREAM. "Twilight" with Alphabeard in Wettonian voice; a piece worthy of a solemn requiem without end, the air glacial, serene and cathartic. The clock strikes an elegiac sound, on KAUAN, the post-rock chamber movement. The invasive bass and the monolithic keyboard fade hypnotically, addictive, Ettore releasing the fluid solo. "Horror Vacui" pushes the F sharp with the plaintive Mellotron, an impulsive gust of wind barely frantic and the flute amplifying the mocking air of the Grim Reaper. Beauty of the moment, tortuous spleen, softened. "Simulacra" returns to archaic sounds, an invasive, stressful sound and a simulacrum of relaxation. Flute and keyboard breaks surrounded by bells for a Genesis-esque and Crimson-esque jam, a captivating, hypnotic, and mantran-like number. Disturbing fades and mandarin vibrations.

"Mademoiselle X" features a twisted bass and a sleepy, velvety keyboard; an ode to women, an elegiac dark wave lament by LACRIMOSA, ideal for crying out loud. The guitar brings a touch of joy to allow us to abandon ourselves to this primal, tribal, and spatial tune, marked by a distant vocoder. "D.o.o.m. (Mortuarii Octavarii Obscuri Declamatio)" for the stage explosion of confused and tortured notes, the musical torment with a frenzied sax; the break surprises with this jazzy, soft, and airy piano, giving way to the drums. An alternation between gentleness and frenzy contrasts with the serene atmosphere on one side, the repetitive piano arpeggio, and the fusion of instruments emerging from a steely crucible. Sampled cat cries, the Mellotron as in times gone by, a hint of ART ZOYD, a slow, ardent stroll on embers of notes with the vibrant guitar finale, a Dantesque martial fade. "Return From The Spiral Mind (Bonus Track)" features percussive sound effects combined with various keyboard notes, rustic, Arabic, religious, and solemn. A variation of sounds like a reinterpretation of a Daedalus track with its divine, soothing moment. The fade again looks to the spaces of TANGERINE DREAM and SCHULZE's drums for the final introspection.

DAAL's sound is tortured, refined, forcing a complex sonic journey for contemplation and introspection. An album inviting you to navigate dark worlds where the lights seem cold; a mysterious, complex, addictive opus that seems to come from Scandinavian lands where daylight is absent for long months. Originally on Progcensor.

alainPP | 4/5 |

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