Band:	Spectral Lore
Album:	Ετερόφωτος
Style:	Dark ambient, Atmospheric black metal
Release date:	April 23, 2021
A review by:	musclassia

01. Ατραπός
02. The Golden Armor
03. Initiation Into The Mystery
04. The Sorcerer Above The Clouds
05. Apocalypse
06. Ετερόφωτος
07. Terean

Yes, the artwork is dreadful. Now, with that out the way, what's the music like?

Well, maybe we can afford to dwell on the cover art of Ετερόφωτος for a brief second longer. What was Ayloss thinking? Following the great art for the excellent Wanderers: Astrology Of The Nine collaboration with Mare Cognitum last year, and the striking cover of Mare Cognitum's own 2021 album Solar Paroxysm, Spectral Lore have dropped the ball with this disinterested giant, an individual who either has red wings or a red mohawk, although it's hard to tell which. It's a bit of a shame, but ultimately, the music is the most important thing, and with the quality of not only the Wanderers collaboration but also Solar Paroxysm, high standards have been set for Ετερόφωτος, standards that it doesn't quite hit for me.

Mare Cognitum's contributions to Wanderers were the more melodic songs on the album, and the melodicism of that project was only amplified on Solar Paroxysm. Does Ετερόφωτος follow a similar trend? Not necessarily; there are a fair number of melodic tremolo leads and riffs scattered throughout the album, but there's also dark, claustrophobic black metal abound, something made clear right from the off on "Ατραπός", which suffocates listeners early on with an onslaught of blast beats, twisted vocals and relentless, chaotic tremolo. This attack is relentless for several minutes, with only scattered leads thrown in to spice things up. I have to admit, one of my issues with Ετερόφωτος is that some of these tremolo leads could have been structured in more satisfying ways; at times, they feel like they're relying on the hope of loud, brash tremolo lines being enough to satisfy listeners, whilst the direction that they go in leaves a little to be desired. I feel this way about moments on "Ατραπός", but also on "The Golden Armor" and "Initiation Into The Mystery". On the flip side, when they work nicely, as on "Ετερόφωτος", it brings an exciting new dimension to the often-blistering barrage of black metal found here.

"Ατραπός" is a long song, and one that shifts through several movements; my favourite section of the song, and perhaps the album, is what follows that initial multi-minute avalanche of blasting, as Ayloss takes the track in a direction that runs pleasantly close to Melechesh territory. It's a contorted, disorienting passage, but of several sections of Ετερόφωτος to which that description could apply, it's the most engrossing. The description of Ετερόφωτος so far has been one of a relentless and vicious listen, but there is some downtime on the album, such as towards the back end of, once again, "Ατραπός", which is rounded off with a clean build and a slower, more grandstand climax. I'm not sure if "Ατραπός" is the best song on Ετερόφωτος (there's times when listening to the title track that I find myself erring towards bestowing that title upon that song instead), but it's the most diverse, and the one that makes the most of its lengthy runtime.

Once "Ατραπός" is out the way, much of the rest of the album sees Ayloss exploring the range of approaches he established on that song, whether it's all-out aggression and malevolence ("The Golden Armor"), a lean closer to melody ("Initiation Into The Mystery") or a break in favour of something less unrelentingly intense ("The Sorcerer Above The Clouds"). These ventures to different sounds come with pros and cons; this is probably the most consistently aggressive that I can remember Spectral Lore being, and at times it's exhilarating, but also some of the more dissonant, evil riffs, such as are found on "The Golden Armor", don't jive with me in the way they do with some similar bands. On the flip side, some of the melodicism works nicely, such as during the latter stages of "The Sorcerer Above The Clouds" and the slowly-building "Apocalypse", but as I mentioned earlier, in the times where it feels directionless, it becomes distracting more than anything.

Overall, I find Ετερόφωτος to be a mixed bag - it's intense, exciting and exhibits some diversity, but there's also sometimes issues with structure and pacing that throw me off, as well as hooks that could be sharper. However, the balance is more skewed towards the positives than this review might suggest; for every section that has me raising an eyebrow or starting to drift off, there's two or three that will bring me back in. Obviously, that ratio is still below what would be hoped for from the best albums, and Ετερόφωτος isn't going to be my favourite black metal album of 2021, but for fans of Spectral Lore, it's definitely worth a look, even though I would ultimately pick Wanderers or an album like III on an occasion that I found myself wishing to listen to the project.

One last aspect of the album that will surprise said fans less than newcomers to Spectral Lore is the closing track, "Terean". Anyone familiar with the album Sentinel will remember it finishing with "Atlus II: A World Within A World", a 30-minute dark ambient piece. By dark ambient, I mean almost purely ambient music, with nothing more than synths, noise and sound effects. "Terean" has a couple of advantages over "Atlus II", one being that it's 10 minutes shorter, but another being that it branches out at times into slightly more tribal ambient territory. Nevertheless, after 60 minutes of black metal attack, 20 minutes of ambience is a bold move, and I do feel like if you want to dabble with approaches that break from the core of an album, it makes more sense to at least slightly weave it into the rest of the record rather than plopping it all right on the end.