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Radien Aste

Thu 1st August 2019


Pete

/incoming/radast.jpgMore Finnish experimentation in the unlit corners and cosmic black holes of doom, Radien are another example of the country's truly out there scene. This is up there with the best of it too - two long tracks that unnerve you through their mood as much as their sheer heaviness.

Tunne is first. Eerie in its intro, layered noise and voices and samples create an unnatural crawling sensation on your skin, praying for the song to begin proper, for riffs to arrive and wash away the feeling. It only intensifies, first through throat-singing additions that lock in the terror, and then, when finally the whole band arrive, they maintain the lack of air or sight of sky through demonic black tar sludge. It is slow and calculated, riffs arrive like sporadic forays at a defensive war line, the plotting, the outbursts all constructing an amplifier-abused electric atmosphere. The nightmarish sounds from the beginning return to haunt the end.

Recovery time is needed to come round. Haudat awaits, easing you in with a gentler beginning. The bass sound thuds in increasing volume, and the ever distraught vocals arrive to blacken any hint of levity in the mood. The guitars lurch then crash with weight, the drums plot the path and restrict the speed of travel. Saxophone appears from out of the dark, Radien truly extending and expressing their experimentation in as many directions as possible, as long as they maintain the core of dark. It brings to mind their compatriots in Dark Buddha Rising or Waste of Space Orchestra in this strange yet alluring middle void. The layers of static, high pitch tones and haunted samples return, the last few minutes an unsettling experience, but one you willfully endure.

And breathe. Pause. And recover, again.

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