Country of origin:Colombia

Location:Medellin, Antioquia

Status:Active

Formed in:2013

Genre:Ambient/Atmospheric Black Metal

 

Current label:Unsigned/independent

Years active:2013-present

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Coldmurk Everything

NausikaDalazBlindaz, July 9th, 2016

I stumbled across this split recording on Youtube while looking for something else. Since "Prevailing Force of Universe" (sic) happens to be Colombian ambient BM band's Astwind's first proper release and this solo project hasn't yet had any reviews on the MA website, I thought, why not give this release a hearing and say something about it? At 17 minutes, it's not very long and I'd get at least one act if not two out of the starting blocks on reviews.

Astwind leads off with "From the Earth Essence to the Firmament", a pleasant synth-dominated song with maddening noodling rhythms, cheery keyboard wash and birdsong, and just enough raspy vocal groan and tinny blast-beat flubby drumming to let you know that Astwind's background is in ambient BM. Much of the song is repetitive and not really very interesting, with the same beats and melodies repeating over and over, and very little being added to the song overall with each repeating loop. The whole thing comes across as a sterile set of endless layers of music and tone. The contribution by Dreams of Nature, "Echoes of the Night", is a much more laid-back dreamy though sometimes treacly song with depressive synthesiser melodies, lots of falling rain, distant voices crying in the background and a cold and faded ambience. The track is very repetitive and features too much schmaltzy and cloying music.

You'd hardly know that two different acts had offered songs for this split as the sound on the two tracks is so similar that you'd swear the same band was responsible for both songs. At least Astwind puts more energy and a bit more aggression into its contribution. The song starts out fine and the tune is not bad but the ideas department behind it runs short all too quickly and the song has to keep recycling itself for most of its 9 minutes. Near the end, the track sounds very mechanical in its execution and the constant repetition, which I don't think is quite what Astwind had in mind. I did not enjoy the Dreams of Nature track much at all.

For the time being, until Astwind builds up its discography, any budding fans will have to be content with this split and an album that came out not long afterwards.

NausikaDalazBlindaz, July 11th, 2016

Whatever the actual spell is, that describes the death and rebirth of the tree in the six tracks on this album, it certainly cast a pall over this reviewer. While individual tracks are not too bad, together they make for a dreary album lacking in anything musical that's not been done before. If you didn't know anything about Astwind or its founder and sole member Coldmurk before listening to this work, you'd be hard-pressed to figure out his musical background and inspiration beyond a preference for ambient and post-black metal. So much of the music here feels mechanical and generic, and there's nothing on the album, musically or in its sound effects, that would help listeners guess where Astwind and Coldmurk might generally live. For the record, the project is based in Colombia (Antioquia region).

As I see it, the big problem is a heavy reliance on synthesisers and programmed rhythms and beats which seem to take over the entire album and dictate the pace, atmosphere and moods of the songs. What actual black metal appears (and there's not that much) is a distant tinny-sounding chainsaw-guitar blur coupled with bursts of pre-programmed flippy machine blast-beat percussion and clanging cymbal showers. The songs rely on keyboard-generated melody or tone loops and nature-themed ambient background effects or field recordings. There's not very much variation from one song to the next and their emotional sterility suggests an unintended cold and calculating attitude at work. Because of this, there's no track that I can recommend to listeners who might insist on finding a silver lining somewhere in this cloud of a recording.

There's a relentless quality about the album, as if once you start listening to it, you find yourself unwillingly dragged along to see all the sights and hear all the noises and glossy sounds there are to experience in this particular audio travelogue, souvenir shops and all. This machine-like aspect might be the worst part of the whole recording.

The album works as a cold dark ambient muzak soundtrack to a film, but as a work in its own right it lacks individuality and originality. Still, it's not too late to save it if the keyboards were replaced by live instruments (acoustic and electric) and if the generic ambient background effects were replaced by live field recordings of natural rainforest or other environments in Colombia or at least in Coldmurk's home region. The melodies and riffs could be much more distinctive as well. Perhaps at a later date when Coldmurk has acquired more experience in writing and performing songs with Astwind and other music projects, he may care to revisit this album and improve it.