The term “unique” is often used to describe the style in which a band play, but today’s Band of the Day, All My Sins, are unique for another reason; their thirteen year hiatus. After two demos, released in 2002 and then 2004, the atmospheric black metal duo have returned with a brand new EP, Lunar/Solar, released earlier this year. Returning triumphantly with four tracks of pure, unadulterated black metal mayhem, All My Sins are undoubtedly back with a vengeance, marking a new era to the duo’s musical career.
With All My Sins having laid dormant for well over a decade, original band members Nav Cosmos (vocals and bass) and V (guitars) have once again joined forces to create some of the most ferocious, yet still delicately intricate, black metal to be released since the early days of the genre. During their hiatus, both band members have had the time and opportunity to experience more within the genre, leading to Lunar/Solar being a more complete, and fuller sounding EP.
Lunar/Solar is not simply an EP which you listen to; it is a soundscape which you must experience, a conceptual EP based around the Serbian mysticism of the sky. Allow yourself to feel surrounded and overwhelmed by the intensity of the dark and brutish “Pod Mesecom Prastari Hrast”, a track which encapsulates the aura of the darker elements of the black metal scene. This is accomplished through the use of repeated, minor-key riffs, and a particularly haunting ending as Nav’s harsh screams grow louder, slowly coming to the forefront of the track until it is all that can be heard. Countering this barbarity, on the solar side of the EP is “Zbogom”, a peacefully slow and delicate track. The almost-psychotic tendencies experienced earlier within the EP are long gone, as while you listen to “Zbogom”, you cannot help but feel a loneliness, as if you are standing atop a hill with nothing surrounding you. The diversity found within Lunar/Solar matches perfectly to the title of the EP, as it truly is like night and day. Here’s hoping that there isn’t another thirteen years to wait until All My Sins’ next release!
Lunar/Solar is out now and is available here
