VESPERS

This highly original album begins off sounding like 'Lustmord' with large swathes of sweeping drones. However, unlike most "Drone' bands Voice of Eye are tuneful... in my mind anyway. The excellent opener 'Waking' reminds me a lot of that very creepy point in the film 'Kill List' where there's a 'Wicker Man' ritual being performed that ends in human sacrifice.

Voice of Eye have an instantly recognisable sound - which is some feat considering the wealth of similarly classed bands who more often than not sound non-descript.

''Breathing' continues the vibe nicely with very bizarre instrumentation that reminds me of 'The Empirical Sleeping Consort'. What resembles wailing cats and dogs are compressed through various filters creating an alien and unworldly atmosphere.

'Blooming' delves into ritual percussion 'Steve Roach' style, only this sounds more intense and less laid back mainly due to what might be horns being blown.

Like all of these tunes they meld into one another creating what could really be just one very long track. 'Waning' delivers that classic Voice of Eye sound with its ominous dread, where strangely stretched out horns and strings create a really dark atmosphere, but is enlivened by hand held percussion instruments.

'Melting' displays some seriously weird distorted percussion and drones, the origins of which I'm at a loss to even guess. There's some elongated human vocals in there somewhere, but this sounds like it was recorded on a planet that orbits Sirius.

'Drifting' utilises extreme phasing on female vocals which pitter-patter amongst droning elecronics and acoustic perky percussion.

The best is left for last - the whopping 19 minute 'Dreaming'. There's so much space between each sound on this recording. Voice of Eye hold the tools and know not to overload every instance with unnecessary intrusions. This is a cold, shivering, floating piece of music which flutters about like ghosts in a Victorian mansion. It' s got that odd 30 second dropout of sound that 90's bands seemed to favour when you think it's finished, only for multiple looped female vocals re-appear in a 'Rapoon' manner which brings this excellent album to a close.

With 'Vespers' you get the usual superb production values you'd expect from this band. Next to 'Transmigration' it's probably their best album. They were at their creative peak around this time (1994-96), recording albums that sound timeless 21 years later.