Artist: Perfect Blind
Title: Stratum
Label: BMSS Records
Date: September, 2017
01. Stratum IX
02. Manifest Destiny
03. Ancient Machinery
04. Last Torch of a Dying Star
05. Burning Mass (feat. Jay Kay)
06. Foreseen Consequences
07. Escape Velocity
08. The Expanse (Spaced Out)
09. Abyssentient
10. The Long Silent
Igor Čeranić otherwise known as Deimos and Perfect Blind has produced a lot of material as well as been the guy you could count on making other artist's work sound great. I've said it before, but he could do the mastering on my toaster and have it sound competent. I first heard his work as Perfect Blind with the stunning Three Spires Ep which you can download in all its FLAC goodness for free from Ektoplazm. He treads in various genres and has shown proficiency in all of them.
Industrial influences abound within this dark and brooding album. He is the anti-Ultimae with sharp edged and rumbling waves of sound in a Orwellian post apocalyptic world. Tracks could have easily come from the minds at Cold Meat Industry as the desolation sticks to the skin like burning cinders. Long intros illustrate a panoramic grey landscape with lush textures. Ancient Machinery reveals the tools of a bygone age wet with corrosion and seeping with forlorn mechanical regret. Last Torch of a Dying Star with its thunderous percussion draws the lines of warring tribes readying themselves for conflict. Burning Mass is the result of that conflict with its distortion soaked guitar and blistering volume. Forseen Consequences surveys the charred battlefield steeped in loss and regret as the battle all but blotted out the sun leaving only mottled grey clouds. The Expanse is as boundless as its namesake while Abyssentient continues down the long road of human destruction. The Long Silent bears witness to what we have done.
This is so f*cking interesting and descriptive it invites you to create your own futuristic movie. People please pay attention to this. I don't believe it's hyperbolic to say that Igor is our generation's Tim Schuldt. When music can evoke crystal clear images and an emotional response that's when you know the height of the art form has been reached. Drawing on industrial influences he creates a world I hope we never see yet at the same time I must see. Stratum is a special piece of music best enjoyed at full volume, listened all the way through when you have ample time to devote to it.
Brilliant and breath taking and oh so vast in scope.
P.S. I haven't heard the bonus Ep so therefore I cannot comment on it.
Perfect Blind Bandcamp