Back in stock. Along with the band's latest 7" EP The Longest Shadows Ever Cast, I also picked up some more of Dutch band Cold Body Radiation's phenomenal second album Deer Twilight, which we sold out pretty quickly the first time we listed in here at C-Blast. This 2011 album is one of the finest examples of black metal influenced shoegaze that I've ever heard come out of that weird "blackgaze" banner. With their previous album, this band combined billowing waves of My Bloody Valentine-style shoegaze with gales of furious blastbeats and scathing blackened shrieks, the harsher elements blending perfectly with their melancholy melodies and sweetened distortion. With this album, though, Cold Body Radiation has stripped away almost all of those black metal elements, shifting their sound into something that's a whole lot more shoegaze and a lot less black metal, but even here you can still sense the underlying darkness and moodiness that continues to lurk beneath their bleary, raging hooks. What's more, Deer Twilight incorporates the sound of sweet, summery chamber strings and horns with those roaring distorted guitars, further filling out their sound into something beautifully majestic, while those blackened shrieking vocals and sweeping cinematic atmospheres remain just below the surface, making this one of the best "blackened shoegaze" albums of the past several years.

   The title track introduces the album, first with swells of soft jangly guitar and gorgeous orchestral strings, crafting some seriously beautiful, plaintive dreampop for the first few minutes, their sound evoking the most symphonic aspects of classic shoegazer rock. But as the rhythm section comes in with their slow, lugubrious backbeat, the sound begins to rise and swell even more, those strings ascending skyward, until finally the swarming, distortion-drenched buzz of the guitars sweep in, a wall of raging distorted swarm, and the song is at last transformed into a breathtaking fusion of murky, melodious tremolo riffing and moody dreampop. That first song is as gorgeous and epic as anything from Sigur Ros or Mono or Nogwai, but that's only the introduction. As the album continues, and the second song "Make Believe" kicks in, the band completely kicks in to their dreamy noisepop, the guitars completely giving themselves over to a gorgeous My Bloody Valentine-esque wall of distortion, that crushing sound washing across those ethereal strings and chiming, mournful guitar melodies. The rest of Deer Twilight is like this, with stunning songcraft and an utterly blown-out billowing fog of melancholy distorted melody, the sound often resembling a darker version of Slowdive or Catherine Wheel, that sort of classic, majestic distorted pop at the center of it all. And even though it's been largely stripped away, further sublimated into their sound, those traces of the band's blackened background can still be heard here and there, showing through on the heavy, powerful bass lines and frequent surges of furious double-bass drumming, the distorted guitars themselves still retaining some of that swarming, seething blackness at times. And the vocals, when not appearing as a breathy croon buried way down in the mix, obscured by the thick haze of fuzz, sometimes materialize as a vicious blackened shriek that is likewise buried deep in the mix, bringing a malevolent quality to the album's otherwise bleary beauty. There are some faster, more frantic tracks like the driving "A Change Of Pace", and on "Concept Of Forever" the band suddenly hurtles into eerie blackened melodies and furious blastbeats, their sound becoming full-on black metal for a moment even while those lovely strings swell across the background, a blast of blackened orchestral fury. But again, there's that crushing shoegaze sound, churning at the heart of each and every song, smeared with bits of electronic effects and strange synth noises that add further sonic textures around each swoonsome, roaring hook. Highly recommended.

   Comes in a four-panel digipack.