The Swiss-based label Elusive Sound has digitally released Glasir‘s debut LP New Dark Age, and the 6-song effort is a towering post-rock foray into the extremes of our apocalyptic future. The album marks the Dallas trio’s return to the label, and it follows up on their 2015 EP Unborn. Comprised of guitarist Conner McKibbin, bassist Nate Ferguson, and drummer Austin Vanbebber, New Dark Age was recorded and mixed by Sam Striker at Native Darkness Productions and was mastered by Randy Cordner at Beast Mansion.
Setting the stage for an epic battle–“one which we cannot win, but one which we may survive”–Glasir’s new LP employs the band’s masterful use of dynamics as they explore a post-rock territory just as capable of soaring to the heights as plunging into the depths of Doom-laden low end. With a long-form approach to composition that finds many of these tracks running between six and eleven minutes, the trio builds narrative thru gut-wrenching passages of tension and release. While cuts like “Holy Chemistry” and “Black Seas Of Eternity” front-load their explosive power, with Nate Ferguson’s bass howling from the sonic depths and Austin Vanbebber’s drums dealing percussive death blows, tracks like “Into the Sun” and “Dissolution” follow Conner McKibbin’s chiming guitar as it slowly builds from ambient beginnings into spiraling crescendos of noise and melody.
Informed by the apocalyptic urge that seems to lie buried somewhere in our collective unconscious, throughout New Dark Age, Glasir gives voice to our most desperate and destructive impulses with an equally unforgiving sound. Ferguson’s bass combines blackened tone with a mammoth heaviness, while Vanbebber’s drumming adds a visceral brutality thru his pounding kick drum and violent cymbal crashes. Buoyed by this rhythmic onslaught, McKibbin carves downward cycling guitar lines laced with anxiety and dread.
While throughout New Dark Age these elements make for a heady and ominous foray into the band’s doomsday scenario, by the time we reach the album’s concluding track, “Hurt Us Again,” Glasir’s sonic maelstrom lightens up enough to offer listeners a glimmer of hope that all is not lost. McKibbin’s guitar still continues its’ patient downward cycling here, but the melodic inclusion of Leoncarlo Canlas‘ violin adds soaring strains to the track. With Ferguson’s bass providing glowing tones of warmth, rather than its’ typically ruinous heft, this cut almost sounds triumphant as it gallops to a close. New Dark Age might indeed narrate our inevitable and difficult future, but on “Hurt Us Again” Glasir seems to hold out hope that something humane still survives.
Tracklisting:
1. Into The Sun
2. Holy Chemistry
3. Dissolution
4. The Last Firmament
5. Black Seas Of Eternity
6. Hurt Us Again
