Made up of members of black-noise shredders Sutekh Hexen and experimental black metallers Necrite, Circle Of Eyes is a crushing ambient/ritual doom project that debuted with a self-titled cassette on the Flenser label a while back that has since gone out of print. Its now reissued on vinyl by the Baltimore based label Anti-Matter in a limited edition on colored vinyl, ripe for rediscovery by fans of black glacial heaviness who missed out on this recording the first time around.

The record starts with the sidelong epic "Penumbra (Awoken)", which begins to take shape as a mass of distant whirr and blackened drift, but within minutes the band drops in with this massive, thunderous blast of distorted downtuned guitarcrush, a huge rumbling clot of power-chord heaviness that moves in slow-motion surges, slowly forming into something like a riff, a monstrous doom metal riff slowed down a thousand times and smeared across a vast, yawning void. This first track is definitely evocative of 00 Void-era Sunn, the molten glacial heaviness slowly creeping forward as the track progresses, surrounded by a kind of cavernous resonance, but then after awhile the vocals come in and it shifts into something a bit different. As those agonized screams and high screeching screams drift upwards out of the glacial churn, the sound becomes much more evil and dejected and processed, a vile mechanical sheen starting to appear on the vocals and guitars even as those screams and howls and grunts grow more animalistic, more psychotic, and subtle industrial elements begin to show through the cracks, droning mechanical loops and clouds of metallic whir seeping out of the tarpit depths.

But then the sound shifts into something even more abstract on side two. The track "Woe Betide The Worms (Dirge For Eternity)" appears in a discordant slow-motion frenzy of damaged guitar melodies and scraped strings, strange percussive sounds and gargling incoherent vocals, with more of that creeping doom riffage lurking underneath. It sounds strangely jazzy at times, like some bizarre black mass soundtrack fusing together bits of AMM-esque free improvisation, rumbling industrial drift, amorphous droning doom metal, and Abruptum-like vocal psychosis. And as the final song " To Wander (Sacred Time)" drifts in, it shifts once again into a lush swell of chamber strings that rise like smoke over the metallic reverberations that continue to carry over from the previous track. When the vocals reappear, they're a strange distant mewling unlike what we've heard before, and the overall effect of this more atmospheric track is that of total abject sadness and loss. Delicate guitar melodies creep across the background, gentle tremolo buzz that drifts in and out of sight, becoming something like a disembodied Codiene guitar track overlaid with tortured black metal shrieks and set adrift in a fog of shimmering reverb.

This stuff is pretty intoxicating; while its DNA definitely crawled out of the same dank black pit as early Sunn and Black Boned Angel, these abyssal rumblings have evolved into something peculiarly bent and feral and experimental. Anti-Matter packaged this vinyl reissue in a thick matte finish jacket with a printed insert and pressed on heavy white vinyl, and includes a large foldout poster with additional artwork along with a download code for a digital copy of the album. Recommended.