I didn't expect to have to wait this long to get closure on one of the sets I witnessed at last year's Roadburn, making it more than one year between the album's performance and its studio counterpart becoming public. The prospect of two bands I had covered before in various forms, one which did seem to share enough common DNA for it to make sense while still being different enough for the prospect to be exciting, did make it one of the sets I looked forward to the most when it did happen. That performance, billed as Ragana & Drowse performing The Ash From Mount Saint Helen, was one I did enjoy but that me and X-Ray Rod both agreed sounded undercooked and could benefit from more time.
Now with a slightly different name for the end product and plenty more time for it in the oven, Ash Souvenir is a bit of a different experience compared to The Ash From Mount Saint Helen. The thing that both of these had going for them was exactly how that balance of things-in-common to differences alongside the fact that a duo is joining forces with a solo artist to create a much more conventional trio makes this collaboration make sense. The shared DNA mostly lies in how both artists specialized in long slow melancholic songs, with the yin-yang of it being how Ragana already had a slowcore component to their sound, and how Drowse's heavier moments inched towards doomgaze, and it's the way the differences between these two interact that makes Ash Souvenir such an interesting listen.
There are a lot of sections where it's either the slowcore or the blackened doom metal that's in the driver seat, and given how the two artists have shown a mastery of these two genres separately, those moments do already feel well crafted, but it's moments like hearing Drowse's reverb-heavy ethereal vocals alongside the shrieks over some punishing doom metal on "After Image" that makes the most of the collaboration's potential. The synergy between the common slowcore ground and the doomgaze blend works the best on the catharsis of the closing title track, with the repeated mantra of "There is nothing to lose" having been a particularly memorable moment during the live performance as well.
There are drawbacks though, as my hope that a studio release would make things feel more properly cooked has been fulfilled but only partially, with there being some moments, like the jump from slowcore to metal in the opening track, where it did feel like something in the mixing was working against how much I would've wanted to get out of the moment, alongside other such moments. And with the album being short as it is and ending with an edited single version of the opening track leaves the core of the album at barely over 30 minutes of runtime, making it feel like there's more to the potential of this collaboration that Ash Souvenir by itself doesn't fully satisfy.
