Band:	Gravetemple
Album:	Impassable Fears
Style:	Dark ambient, Drone doom metal
Release date:	June 2017

01. A Szarka (The Magpie)
02. Elavúlt Földbolygó (World Out Of Date)
03. A Karma Karmai (Karmas Claws)
04. Domino
05. Athatolhatatlan Félelmek (Impassable Fears)
06. Az Örök Végtelen Üresség (Eternal Endless Void)

With my drone adventurism for the current year, up til this point I had been coming across some pretty good releases, but none that seriously knocked my socks off. Then Gravetemple entered the picture.

The band name may be unfamiliar to some, but the musicians involved shouldn't be, at least if you're a fan of darker, more experimental forms of music. This powerhouse of droney, dark ambient music is composed of none other than the legendary Attila Csihar on vocal duty, Stephen O'Malley and Oren Ambarchi on guitars, and the talented Matt Sanders on drums. This group has kept up a lovely variation between electronic, ambient-based material and more metallic, doomy material up to this point, and Impassable Fears, their second full length, sits more in that second area. The most obvious band to compare to here, especially given the involvement of Csihar and O'Malley, would be Sunn O))), but even with that similarity, Gravetemple still maintain a strong sense of their own identity. Though maintaining a dark, smothering, and imposing drone doom core like Sunn O))), this project also makes heavy use of impressive drum work via Sanders, some brighter, atmospheric moments like on closer "Az Örök Végtelen Üresség (Eternal Endless Void)," and an overall wider variety of guitar techniques, all of which serve as big differentiators.

What really makes Gravetemple most impressive, both with Impassable Fears and their past material, is how much a feeling comes out of each musician being equally important for the band. No one ever seems to overshadow anyone else here, and each member delivers an absolutely phenomenal performance. O'Malley and Ambarchi let their guitar work snake around each other, with curious deliveries ranging from repetitious, extended drones to more complex techniques oozing of psychedelic and (pleasantly surprising!) black metal influence. Matt Sanders does a wonderful job of making his drum work guide the music, sometimes giving a steady, pulsing delivery and at other letting crazier, almost jazz like rhythms simmer and bubble underneath the droney muck. Indeed, a difficult trick to pull off in a genre in which drums are often an anomaly. And of course, there's Attila. I don't need to tell you about this man's incredible talent with a wide range of vocal techniques. Here, instead of dominating in the forefront, his voice is more hushed and sort of blended into the mix, appearing as some sort of beastly power attempting to break free from a cage, which helps enormously with making the music sound more suffocating and suspenseful (see "Elavúlt Földbolygó (World Out Of Date)" especially).

Most notably, in terms of the careers of the musicians involved, Impassable Fears really redeems Stephen O'Malley's songwriting after the rather lackluster Sunn O))) albums that were Soused and Kannon. For a while now I've gotten the impression that this guy does better with his non-Sunn O))) work, and that seems to be the case, as his 2014 collab with Ambarchi and Randall Dunn, the new Æthenor from last year. and this new Gravetemple effort all suggest. For Attila, Ambarchi, and Matt Sanders, it's just one more high note to add to their already impressive resumes. As I began by saying in this review, there have already been several very good releases this year for drone. Being a genre so inclined to experimentation and creativity, it never really has a "bad year." But Gravetemple is going to have something the other bands lack. More variation. More potent songwriting. Better production. Better.... everything, perhaps. The moment of truth for drone metal in 2017 has arrived. Play it loud.

Enter.