Album Review: Ashtar – Kaikuja (Eisenwald)

Ashtar are a duo from Basel consisting of Nadine and Marko Lehtinen. Before they formed Ashtar in 2013, Nadine played in Shever while Marko played in Phased. In Ashtar Nadine writes all the lyrics and handles most of the vocals. In the studio the duo play all the instruments themselves. In their live formation, Ashtar are a quartet with two onstage guest guitarists.

Following on from their 2014 well received debut ‘Ilmasaari’ which got special recognition coming from Tom Gabriel Fischer (Celtic Frost/Triptykon), the duo are back with ‘Kaikuja’.

Translated from Finnish as ‘Echoes’, ‘Kaikuja’ is aptly titled, for its dense-yet-spacious soundwalls bear a rich ‘n’ reverberating strength. Trace elements of black metal and doom exist once again, but are further spliced with the DNA of drone, sludge, and even post-rock.

Kaikuja will be released on May 15th 2020 via Eisenwald.

As frigid and icy as a Finnish winter, Ashtar spread their cold tendrils into the heart and soul with five tracks of black metal themed darkness. However, to make Kaikuja an even more uncomfortable experience, the duo extend themselves with post-style melancholic passages, thick and meaty doom segments and the buzz of drone to help unseat the mind.

All of that and more comes in one track alone, the near 14 minute Between Furious Clouds. A trawling epic that is forlorn, dark, heavy and monotonous. It will break down any resistance you have to Ashtar’s sound.

Around that, we get nothing quite as long but still plenty that numb the brain. Aeolus is a frantic showcase of brutal black metal, Bloodstones is howling doomy horror, The Closing is methodical madness and (She is) Awakening with its rhythmic guitars like the buzzing of demonic voices in the skull. Easily the most eerie and haunting of the bunch.

Ashtar – Kaikuja Full Track Listing:

1. Aeolus
2. Between Furious Clouds
3. Bloodstones
4. The Closing
5. (She is) Awakening

Links

Bandcamp | Facebook | Eisenwald