ENDNAME Dreams Of A Cyclops CD (R.A.I.G.) 11.98The first album from this Moscow-based instrumental space-metal group has the heavy prog feel that you'd expect from an album on R.A.I.G., but it's injected into a super heavy sludge/doom weightiness that often sounds like a kind of stately prog-doom. These guys have been compared to Pelican a bit, and there's definitely some of that sound going on here, but EndName add a bunch of their own eccentric sounds and turn it into something uniquely theirs, a mix of instrumental King Crimson-influenced prog, winding doom riffing, space rock atmospherics and quirky electronic soundscaping that puts an emphasis on heavy, hypnotic grooves, incorporating lots of synthesizer, Frippy guitar work, tribal percussion and even didgeridoo into their odd art-metal.
The proggy math-doom workout of opener "Inception" goes from stuttering Meshuggah-like riffage and cascading sheets of processed guitar into a repetitious, sinister doom metal riff driven by a lurching angular rhythm and constant harmonic squeals. "North" is slow pounding doom metal mixed with symphonic synth strings and pounding industrial clang, a lumbering cinematic doom instrumental that opens up into weirdly sunny melodic passages, soaring fx-heavy guitar solos, and some baroque Ren Faire keyboards towards the end that makes this sound like some weird proggy 80's doom. The fourteen minute "Eclipse" has Floydian guitar atmospherics flowing into an epic 80's metal/cop show groove with propulsive drums and melodic metallic riffing, a killer hook at the center of it, breaking of into tribal hand-drum percussion and atmospheric droning; halfway into it, the track starts to sound like older Pelican jamming with a drum circle before slipping back into that killer quasi-disco groove, then gets all spacey at the end with odd countrified guitars and more hand percussion. Heavy stop-start riffing dominates "Beyond The Scope" with an almost Helmet/Gore style groove, heavy angular sludge rock with creepy spacey lead guitar.
"Dissolution" opens with delayed didgeridoo drones and spacey synth drift, a deep cosmic ambience streaked with backwards guitar, chimes, buried electronic pulse, and synth strings, a total krautrock-inspired dronescape a la Tangerine Dream / Klaus Schulze, an eerie descending melody gradually returning to the ominous didgeridoo buzz. And closer "Dissociation" returns to the massive processed slabs of progged out sludge metal with another lumbering stop/start riff and more sheets of FX-heavy guitar, crushing plodding drone-riffage and swirling cosmic synths merging into a slow and propulsive groove, the drums a mechanical tick-tock pulse, riffs constantly changing and chugging, the drums blasting off into volleys of ferocious double bass later on, joined by percussive clang and crashing cymbals, mutating into a frenzy of spaced out thrash metal riffing at the very end.