Review
Wolvserpent
Aporia: Kala: Ananta

When it comes to mystical vibes, few can challenge the music of Wolvserpent. The duo consisting of Blake Green and Brittany McConnell in the past six years has been putting out a series excellent works. From their debut, Blood Seed, their drone/doom vision started coming into view, a concept that felt finalized with the release of their latest album, Perigaea Antahkarana. What is interesting, is that even though the band has remained quite active (in terms of releases) between their debut and last full-length, but that has not been the case with their latest EP, Aporia:Kala:Ananta. Three years of silence is all we have received coming up to this EP, raising further the anticipation for this release.

Firstly, the one track that is contained in this EP is the longest that Wolvserpent has ever composed, ranging over forty minutes. Through the dark corridors of Perigaea Antahkarana, the band was producing their drone/doom sound, enriching it with further injections of dark ambient, dark folk, a classical leaning and an overall blackened concept. In Aporia, this idea is condensed, resulting in a dark maze of a track. The trip is starting off through its dark ambient roots, with a minimalistic quality unfolding alongside its ritualistic extensions, and the violin adding an additional layer to the thick sound.

From that point on, Wolvserpent visit the different chambers of their house and blur the lines between these entities. The classical aspect unfolds and oozes to the surface, while the drums bring in a more folk quality, something further increased with some switches in instrumentation. Everything begins to go pitch black by then.

What comes forth is a blackened perspective that begins to infect the ambiance of this opus, creating a dense environment. The heavy, yet whispery, vocals add even further to this towering ambiance, while certain riffs point even more directly towards the black metal space. Coming with the majestic drones on the background, these parts travel to darker territories, verging on blackened drone edges, as the dissonance and extreme feedback bind everything together. The drone side does not just say on the background though, and it is rather one of the pillars of Wolvserpent's sound. The complete drone/doom explosion that comes in with the extreme distortion and minimal pace is constructing, not a mere dystopian scenery, but an utterly ruined, annihilated world. Further feedback explosions and injections of dissonance just push this work over the top.

Aporia is a record that expands on the sound of Wolvserpent, a further crafting of their concepts and outputs. It is amazing how this track comes to form, slowly starting an amazing climb through the blackened approach, divulging into its drone identity and presenting its connections to classical and folk music, masterfully blurring the sonic borders between genres. It is a record of great continuity and unnerving depth.