New Year. New Me. That’s a thing, right? It sounds like something I’ve seen banded about over the past few weeks. If this is true musically then what is Blackcloudsummoner saying on their new album Chaos Never Dies? Probably quite a lot!
As usual we are given an album full of drones, tones, and straight up destruction. There are also melodies and rhythm buried deep below the churning synths and glitching electronics. What we’re not used to, however, is the level of venom it has. Something has either annoyed Blackcloudsummoner recently or a cataclysmic event has taken place. It’s probably both or neither, but there is definitely something between the teeth this time around.
‘Honestly’ kicks off the album and kick it does. Fidgeting electronics welcome us. They are at higher register than usual. This makes them slightly more skittish. They really get under your skin and stay there. A third of the way in all we’ve got are these twitching sounds. Normally Blackcloudsummoner is flooding our sense with impregnable walls of noise and confusion. But not here. Instead, they have constructed something that feels both subdued and full on. Around the halfway mark things start to get more intense. Its almost unbearable at times, but it doesn’t break. You
are almost willing it to during into a deluge of noise. But again, it doesn’t. Blackcloudsummoner has created something that restrained. It is full of their usual intensity but without the levels of
volume.
‘Blood Stream’ follows on the opener’s heels, it almost feels like a continuation rather than a separate track. Immediately we start to get those dank noises we’ve been waiting for. It’s heavier, in every sense, than ‘Honestly’ but you can still hear those piercing electronics over the deep drones. Like ‘Honestly’ it never quite breaks. The dam holds firm. ‘Die Laughing’ has the closest thing the album has to a melody. It’s jaunty, fun and a little bit silly. It weirdly reminds me of Aphex Twin. When he’d drop something fun into his songs before hitting us with a massive beat. It feels like a landmark moment in the band’s career to date. Over the years they’ve played with melody and rhythm but never like this. It’s almost so obvious that you gloss over it on first listen, instead focusing on the caustic sounds. On repeat listens it is more pronounced and draws in all of your attention. The album ends with ‘Wyrding Way,’ the standout moment on Chaos Never Dies. Much like ‘Honestly’ this is an exercise in piercing tones, rather than walls of filth. Although the filth is still there. Thankfully. About a third in it sounds like a rave/garage airhorn, but you know, messed up. At one point I expected the beat to drop, or a fat bass wobble to come in. When it didn’t, I was both relieved and disappointed. But this is what Blackcloudsummoner is doing now. They’re playing not only with sounds/genres, but our preconceived notions of what happens after certain sounds are heard. Just after the halfway mark we kind of get a bass drop. More of a lurch though. It still has the same effect. A massive grin on our collective faces.
What Chaos Never Dies tells us is that Blackcloudsummoner has got some new toys to play with, but they haven’t forgotten their old ones. Combined, they are making one hell of a racket. And it’s glorious. However, the real story here is that Blackcloudsummoner has also come to grips with something that a lot of noise/experimental artists don’t: Melody.
Here we are witnessing the first tentative steps into a different world that operates on a different level to everything that they’re released before. It’s something that I’ve always hoped they’d explore. I also hope that is leads to more collaborations. Collaborations outside of the noise/experimental/avant-garde scenes. I would love to see Blackcloudsummoner working with a vocalist. Not just spoken word, but a singer/rapper.
2021 ended very well for BLACKCLOUDSUMMONER, but 2022 is looking to be something totally different indeed. And they’re right. Chaos never dies. It just gets new toys and ideas.