With a few rare exceptions, Profound Lore generally pushes the extremes of whatever genre they release and deliver superb examples of anything they touch (Profundi, Wold, The Angelic Process, Alcest, Asunder, Cobalt, Nadja). And while, not ‘extreme’ per say, Amber Asylum’s fifth album, pushes the limits and boundaries of the neo-goth/classical genre with a simply awe inspiring album of elegantly somber and hypnotically depressive music.
As most of you know Amber Asylum is the brainchild of Kris Force, who has recorded with such luminaries as Swans and Neurosis, and for this album is assisted by Liz Allbee, John Cobbett (Ludicra, Slough Feg, Hammers of Misfortune), Rosalind Gratz, Jackie Perez Gratz (Grayceon, Asunder, Giant Squid), Tim Green, Eric Peterson, Sarah Schaffer and Lorraine Rath. The end result is a delicate, ebbing album of acoustic textures, string accompaniments, ethereal female vocals and a mood of despondent beauty than will engulf you and mesmerize you into a transcendental world of evocative ambience.
Not an album to dissect track by track, Still Point is one of those high art albums that requires a certain mood or frame of mind; a dusky forest in the fall, a black velvet curtained room lit only by candles or a stark castle chamber; anything to absolve you of all thought and stimuli and allow say the introspective shimmer of “Diminishing Returns”, the cover of Richard Thompson’s “The Great Valerio” or the sadness drenched “North” to lull you into a melancholic slumber.
While Amber Asylum would be a more perfect fit on say Prophecy Productions of Equilibrium Music, they are right at home of Profound Lore who seem to at any time deliver the elite of a chosen genre, and in the annals of the ambient/ neo folk/classical genre, Amber Asylum stand alone; despondent, dolorous, brilliant.
