Every aspect of Noise Trail Immersion’s 2018 full length Symbology of Shelter (out in full Nov. 2) seethes with blood curdling ferocity in an epic display of musical prowess. The band weaves a dark, twisted path through what feels like the psychopathy of the human mind, leaving the listener metaphorically shivering as they face the bone rattling reality they’ve been left in.
Few bands seek to evoke such terror, and even fewer succeed. (The Secret come to mind as an example successfully unnerving their listeners and then some.) Noise Trail Immersion prove a master of the field, though. They’ve focused their energies, zeroing in on the listener in a targeted meltdown made all the more organic and piercing via the connection of each of their 2018 tracks. Symbology of Shelter has been explained as one long creation that was split up into seven tracks simply to make a more fully formed full length, and rather than a gimmick, that unity of purpose and drive serves the album very well.
In each of their musical undertakings scattered across the record’s abyss, Noise Trail Immersion return to a core concept of thrilling disaster. That drive — right off the edge of a metaphorical cliff, one might say — carries on through their thrashing, contorting black metal to their music’s disturbing ambient component and its relations that make an appearance. Peering over the whole record from above, there’s not a gimmick in sight, which remains a welcome feature. These musicians get right down to business, leaving little to the imagination and instead filling in every space they can to reflect their sprawling vision.
In works like that Noise Trail Immersion present, one of the looming, starting questions often proves to be how the band has tied their work to something “real.” Listeners are affected when they’re intrigued by a core — something that’s just “heavy” or “scary” isn’t going to cut it. Jump scares in horror movies quickly become annoying to the seasoned fan, because that’s not what we’re here for. Observers arrive for something fresh and thriving, not to be fed the same old, same old.
In this area, Noise Trail Immersion thrive. They’ve carved a path for themselves through the music community, and the global artistic community, that’s all their own. You’d be hard pressed to find something that sounds like their mixture of horror metal, dark ambient, sprawling dark post punk and everything described by so many imaginable adjectives in between.
5/5 Stars
Listen below via Bandcamp.
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