Album Review: At Dusk – Condemned (Pacific Threnodies)

Since its inception in 2010, At Dusk has been one of the most singular projects in all of USBM. Iconoclastic to the point where each release under the At Dusk banner really deserves to be considered in a vacuum, isolated not only from anything else currently happening in the American black metal underground, but even the rest of his own output.

That’s not to say, however, that there are no through points in At Dusk’s discography. It’s quite the opposite, in fact. The style of black metal that At Dusk plays may have gotten progressively less raw since the project’s debut split with Idolater, but the musical and lyrical frameworks that define At Dusk have been present from the start: depressive black metal infused with equally depressive doom elements, dealing with existential themes of death, despair, and the lingering effects that Korihor, the generally unseen architect behind At Dusk, has dealt with since being excommunicated from the articles of his faith when still in his teens.

Condemned will be available on CD (limited to 100 in large DVD cases with 4-panel lyric insert) on March 29th 2019 from Pacific Threnodies Records.

With such a mysterious background, it does make listening to the four tracks of Condemned feel like listening to something not of this world. Beginning with the longest track on the album, the title track builds atmosphere until it breaks into squalid and horrible sounding bleak black metal.

This is the sound of screaming into the void and having the void scream back at you. It shouldn’t be so appealing, yet it is. Partially because it won’t stay still, like a slippery serpent.

It’s more of the same horrifying evilness with Consigned although the breaks in between the furious metal are far more haunting here. It’s almost as long as the the opener but doesn’t drag as much thanks to a more structured style.

We then get something really quite different for the first few minutes of Martyred…piano. It’s really well played and makes the following return to the downbeat blackness far more palatable.

An extraordinary release ends with Maligned. A lengthy intro of haunting atmosphere and a conversation between a man and child about wanting to murder gets it started before At Dusk push the boundaries of black metal to breaking point.

An exclamation point.

At Dusk – Condemned Full Track Listing:

1. Condemned
2. Consigned
3. Martyred
4. Maligned

The album can be ordered via Bandcamp here.