DOWNLOAD: Bird From the Abyss - III

Bird From The Abyss
III

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A Finnish one-man drone ritualist, Bird From the Abyss' tribal trance inductions are steeped in the ancient traditions of the Earth and the old ways of man.  The runic text of his name is pretty cool, reminds me of Blood of the Black Owl and the rest of the Bindrune clan in that respect, and there's also a sense of that blackened doom through this, although anything Finnish, no matter how upbeat has an aura of darkness about it.  

III is the third release from Juho Matias Aaltonen's project, available as both a 50 copy limited miniCDr and digital download from the Bandcamp page. It features one long 13 minute opening piece followed by two short 4 minuters. The long Neck Deep In Swampy Mud uses takes it's time to peal open a crackly foggy scene setting drone that gets punctuated by steel guitar strings after around 4 minutes, with a gritty rumble of bassy guitar weighing the background out nicely, sounding like a sparse take on Harvestman, a less musically intricate Evan Caminiti or Jon Porras band such as Barn Owl or Higuma, or a more Metal oriented Natural Snow Buildings. Distant minor-key harmonic synth chords and almost-vocals cloaked in reverb fill out the middle ground creating a full affecting landscape of tones.  I hate to say this too, but it really sounds Witch Housey, with the grim ambience and pitchshifted voices creating a rhythmic pull and wash that has palpable momentum until it finished in a garbled vortex as the layers of sound get warped and faded out.

Powers Hidden opens with a sagely mystic talking of the fearsome black powers, then a grey folk progression marches through the foreground and on into a hypnotic raga of wyrdness.  The final Interlude From Abandoned Well as a decrepit rasp to the guitar playing, which is fiercer, more riffy, jagged and aggressive with slides, abrupt cuts to distortion and a more robust heroic feel to it that the more rurally oriented tracks.  

It's a very involving trip, and one that's already borne out several fully immersive repeat listens. A very intriguing prospect of a band.

The first release I is also up for free download; the second came out on a limited run of 100 gold CDs but is still available digitally for $4.50

Website: http://birdfromtheabyss.com/

MySpazz: www.myspace.com/birdfromtheabyss

Bandcamp: http://birdfromtheabyss.bandcamp.com/