ESOTERIC is one of the most bewildering phenomena on the modern music scene. Perverted musical pseudo-aesthetes with acid-melted brains play perhaps the most funereal variety of funeral doom -- chill-out doom. Seriously, who else would think to call a 50-minute disc an EP... Right, for these guys "War and Peace" is a novella in five parts.
"Subconscious Dissolution Into The Continuum," recorded and produced as always by the band themselves, contains four audio eulogies: the first runs 12 minutes, the second 13, the third is a record-breaking 17 minutes of tantric emanations accompanied by droning guitars and a thudding rhythm section. The album closes with a short (check your player's display!) instrumental, so drowned in effects that I honestly began to doubt whether these grim Englishmen play their music by plucking strings or entirely by turning the knobs of various effects units and amplifiers.
In many ways, the music is close to noise ambient, yet it retains a rhythmic framework that somewhat eases the listening experience. The most successful track, "The Blood Of The Eyes," opens with a beautiful atmospheric melody, while "Morphia" more closely resembles a monotonous prayer to ancient Chaldean demons. The lyrics generate a suicidal, oppressive mood, and the thin booklet, stingy with any information, only deepens the funereal atmosphere.
Definitely not for everyone. Definitely an acquired taste. Very difficult to assign a score, and yet...