With Skulls Drawn On It! - Mist

 

Released: September 4

Playing heavily on the name of the album, With Skulls Drawn On It! deals in unclear and murky motifs throughout the runtime of Mist. Far from being just another drone or dark ambient album though, there are many rather surprising and seemingly out of character moments in which the murkiness subsides just a little bit to let something with a bit of light shine through. 

Opening up with "Parasites, kill them all!" the album sets a tone of something dark and indecipherable as pads soar against bitcrushed static and suspenseful strings. This establishes early on that the concept of haze and fog will persistently reappear. And no track displays this quite as intensely and dramatically as "Snow on TV," a track that seemingly has to fight against itself in order to not be completely consumed by the static which recurs with varying intensity. But then, later on we come to "Raining sun," a track that does not completely forego the static and haze but brings a certain hopeful lightness to the experience as deep keys and glockenspiel-style sounds play out a somewhat happy but very broken melody. It seems like just the briefest bit of elation that is quickly replaced by a deep haunting uncertainty on "Saison."