NEW RISEN THRONE

"Crossing The Withered Regions"

Cold Meat Industry - 2009

CD

Cold Meat Industry presents the second full-length by New Risen Throne, a new Italian dark ambient project spawned by some individual known as Stielh, who's also active in the project Konau, a collaboration with Andrea Freschi (member of Canaan, Weltschemrz, and other bands). The artwork portrays a desolate dry landscape, where dead trees stand against a greenish, sick-looking sky and dead bodies hanged to their branches are rotting into thin air. With such a graphic presentation, you know what to expect: the sound is extremely low and depressive, maybe a bit too much this time. As a matter of fact, you need to rise the volume quite a lot in order to listen to something, and the six tracks aren't much distinguishable from one another. Only the first half of "Sigh Of The Soul" is enlightened by a sepulchral keyboard melody, the rest sounds quite flat and repetitive.

The promotional sheet puts New Risen Throne side by side with another dark ambient newcomer from Italy also released by Cold Meat in recent times, i.e. Vestigial, but there's no need to say that a cosmic abyss separates the two in terms of originality and emotions evoked by the music. "Crossing The Withered Regions" also features a video for the "Withered Regions" track, with the images seen on the digipak swifting and rotating on a computer-generated scenery.

- Simon V.

Website: http://www.stielh.com

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/stielh