Full Album Stream: Aelter: Dusk Dawn & Follow Your Beloved – 2-CD re-issue

Listen to two albums, ‘Dusk Dawn’ and ‘Follow Your Beloved’, by WOLVSERPENT guitarist Blake Green here (BandCamp) or via player available below, courtesy of Crucial Blast Records. The label has just re-issued the two AELTER albums released only on vinyl, 2009's ‘Dusk Dawn’ and 2011's ‘Follow Your Beloved’, as a double CD package. You can buy this unearthly and enthralling music here (Crucial Blast). AELTER is the solo effort of guitarist Blake Green.

“The first AELTER record ‘Dusk Dawn’ begins much like something you would hear from WOLVSERPENT, an eerie guitar figure slowly plucked over heavy, rumbling doom metal chords, the dark menacing sound slowly unfolding in a manner similar to newer EARTH but with a much more sinister vibe. … The second track travels deeper into this lush shadowy ambiance, the guitars dropping out for long stretches of time as gorgeous high-end drones and shimmering dream-pop keyboards. The vocals begin to appear way off in the distance, slowly fading inwards as the guitars again materialize with chugging downtuned crunch and somber minor key melodies unwinding overhead. … The second AELTER album, ‘Follow You Beloved’ grows even darker, much of the prettiness from the first album leeched out by the swelling blackness, but still rife with moments of fragile beauty. ‘Beloved’ begins with a solemn organ line joined by equally funereal piano notes awash in lunar glow. It transforms into a desolate guitar instrumental, reverby guitar twang unfolding around delicate acoustic picking and washes of ethereal synth that almost has a Badalamenti [Angelo, American composer] tint to it; then the drums come in, heavy and plodding, just as the airy fragile layered vocals materialize and the sound appears as some kind of shadow-cast, doom laden slowcore. … ‘Follow You’ takes us once more into eerie Badalamenti-like haze of sorrowful reverb guitar and haunting droning keys joined by deep bass notes and cello-like sounds, and then suddenly drops into doomed crush, slow ponderous drums and crushing glacial guitars continuing the main melody, distant ethereal vocals layered in eerie harmony behind the grim doom-laden heaviness, eventually flowing out into a mass of choral darkness later in the song when the music drops out and the vocals come to the fore. … [read more here]