AUSSERWELT

Ausserwelt is the 2nd full-length studio album by French post metal act Year of No Light. The album was released through Conspiracy Records in April 2010. I was fairly impressed by their debut album Nord which was both aggressive and doomy but also pretty melodic. A very well balanced album.

Ausserwelt is also a high quality post metal album, but there´s one big difference when compared to Nord. The already sparse aggressive vocals are gone and Ausserwelt is a completely instrumental album. With the loss of the vocals I think the music loses a dimension but Ausserwelt is still a very impressive album. Imagine how Sigur Ros would sound if they played doomy post metal/ shoegaze. The grand and cold soundscapes that the Icelandic act creates is akin to how Ausserwelt sounds. The music is guitar driven and there´s a wall of sound approach to the proceedings. It´s quite emotionally overwhelming at times. There are only 4 tracks on the album but they last from 9 minutes to 13 minutes each so there´s enough value for the money and more than enough time for the songs to develop. The first two tracks Perséphone I and Perséphone II seques into each other to form one long track. While both Hiérophante and Abbesse are good songs too, the highlight are the Perséphone tracks.

The production is professional and detailed.

Ausserwelt is a good album by Year of No Light and a 3.5 star rating is deserved. It´s purely a personal thing but I miss the vocals and the extra dimension they created in the music. It´s of course an aquired taste if you´re able to enjoy fully instrumental post metal albums.