Year Of No Light // Consolamentum // Album Review

French Post-Metal six-piece, Year of No Light have returned for the fifth time whilst also preparing to release a limited-edition deluxe wooden box set of the band’s entire discography titled Mnemophobia to celebrate the 20^th anniversary of the band.

There is a reason that a band lasts long enough to celebrate such milestones and that is because they make damned good music and in the case of Year of No Light this is by the way of expansive sounds and depressive atmospherics to express the more solemn side of life since the debut album Nord in 2006.

The follow-up release saw Ausserwelt in 2010 which saw the band become a huge force in Europe and led to tours of the continent, North America and Russia along with appearances at Roadburn Festival and Hellfest, saw the word spread like wildfire. This culminated in the third release Tocsin being unleashed in 2013 and rocketing the band to the height of their success. Due to this, for Consolamentum, the band have returned to the same team as in 2013 and to create a truer album, the band decided to record the album in analogue along with being captured live.

This way of recording has allowed the music to flow more naturally and organically, weaving its way through the darker and more readily avoided areas of the psyche.

From the beginning, it is clear that this album is going to be emotive and challenging as the atmosphere builds and attaches itself to your insecurities. Once it gets hold, there is no chance of stopping this, so don’t even fight it. Allow this wave of audible complexity to crash over you and push you under to the undercurrent.

As you get pulled further away from your comfort zone the depths of the music are staggering and for many will reach the never explored areas of music and the links with emotion. If you let yourself go completely, you will find things out about yourself as this incredible Post-Metal band use their crushing instruments and beautiful minds to produce some of the most incredible music you are likely to experience.

Consolamentum is an album that truly has to be heard to be believed and the more you let yourself go, the more you will get from the offering and this also firmly concretes Year of No Light at the top of the game.

Ed Ford

Consolamentum will be released July 2^nd 2021 via Pelagic Records.