Missed Album Review: Scarcity – Aveilut

Style: Avant-garde Black Metal, Drone, Modern Classical (harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Blut Aus Nord, The Ruins of Beverast, Sunn O))
Review by: Andy
Country: United States-NY
Release date: 15 July, 2022

Desolate droning pulses echo outward from the preceding calm before Aveilut; the guitar immediately invokes the haunting airhorn of The Lighthouse’s psychological horror. Drums materialize to provide locomotion as soon as the creeping microtonal guitars–which occasionally meet to form hideously unsettling chords but more often than not counteract all logical sense of melody–begin to stagnate. These blaring melodies at the start of “I” are a nuclear alarm, a presaging omen of imminent, cataclysmic disaster as uncomfortable to listen to as the grief and desolation in Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima. Just as Blut Aus Nord unraveled chthonic tendrils around listeners’ throats in their suffocating opus Disharmonium: Undreamable Abysses earlier this year, so the unwieldy, indecipherable guitars of Aveilut also strangle unprepared listeners–without the need for conceptual prompting. Soon after the initial musical prophesying of doom, Doug Moore (Pyrrhon), among the best lyricists in metal, unleashes sinister snarls of his blunt poetry, rejecting the permanence of death. These distressing soundscapes and messages do not cease for the first three movements of Aveilut, but the vocals–despite the wickedly pitiless harshes–improbably provide some of the only moments of respite in the ferocious, forward-marching assault of Scarcity’s guitars and drums. 

Scarcity is inescapable. Staccato blast beats and the microtonal tremeloes turn into a bass-led pulse as “I” seamlessly transitions into “II”: the flow is a direct result of Brendon Randall-Myers’ musical pedigree as a composer of experimental modern classical. As an experienced composer, he contributes true classical sensibility and aplomb to metal. The technical crescendos and microtonal progressions contribute to a superstructure as indecipherable as the most inhuman of Moore’s vocals. Aveilut additionally has endless replay value owing to the intense, strident performances that never undermine the high-mindedness of the artform. Appreciating the seamless shifting cycles of microtonality and dramatic overarching progressions is like a game once one–after multiple listens–can disentangle themselves from the grip of the more momentary struggle to comprehend what’s happening. 

Returning to the bass of “II,” Aveilut is the sound of an experienced composer grappling with death–understandable at a primal level but altogether too sophisticated to fully wrap your head around without serious thinking. And this album isn’t merely conveying sadness nor sage acceptance like Dessiderium; this is unbridled anger, especially prominent in movements “II” and “III.” As Randall-Myers battles against these furious, challenging-to-comprehend concepts, the tremelos erupt out of the scorched earth and sizzle dazzilingly until they burn away–leaving room for another to burn anew–such that anytime a sense of complacency with the discordant riffs occurs, he tears the carpet out from under you. If he can’t come to terms with death, you can’t grasp his music easily. The vocals in these movements are the deranged wailing of souls gone, bursting out of cracks in the ground while simultaneously crazed riffs serve to obfuscate and confuse–successfully. Aveilut is a fortress of horror and loss using classical and metal alike to buttress itself from any attempts at understanding its deeper structures. The lyrics, shouted above the increasingly intensifying din, propose: “Bе without fear when your lungs fail to draw air” just as the movement ironically reaches its new zenith of asphyxiating anxiety. This climactic audial onslaught is far too powerful to be a natural disaster–this is anthropogenic destruction; akin to Chernobyl or Nagasaki.  

Constant blasts and blaring guitars continue on in their journey to come to terms with disaster–or perhaps they are the disaster. I’ve never heard something this sophisticated be quite so terrifying: Aveilut is Warforged matured to the compositional level of Schoenberg. “III” leaves the listener to smolder in the gaze of Scarcity, who explode to whole new levels of uncompromisability at the culmination of the movement’s crescendo: Everything turns to noise as the bomb foretold in “I” is actually dropped. And it isn’t detonated once; no, the bomb explodes again and again like Ashenspire setting Grenfell aflame. Thus, “IV” functions as the true fallout. Aveilut devolves–or is incinerated–into a drone as powerful as standing in front of a huge amp. Eventually, explorative guitar lines peek out of the low end along with disgustingly deep vocals, the only remaining survivors–holy god, the vocals at 6:15 are demonic with just the distorted electronica holding up the demented screams. 

“V” brings the black metal back with ungodly levels of counterpoint, the advanced chord progressions a vile reminder of the compositional skill on display. Parts of the movement may well be the harmonic zenith of metal as too many guitars to count all merge and play together for a terrifying moment at 4:55 before all hell breaks loose again into a SkyThala-lite ascending riff. Finally, the lyrics indicate some sort of coming to terms with death, getting over the apparent thanatophobia running through the work; likewise, the music tells a complicated story of that same ending. Every disconcerting piece finds another discordant line to overwhelm the senses with their euphoric polyphonic bliss. The guitars shift and fall away and give birth to new parts over and over, and Randall-Myers/Moore reach a near understanding with the scream: “Sempiternal, perfected forever, your shadow lingers on, on, on.” Afterward, all that remains is an ultimate haunting orchestration. 

Reckoning with existential mortality remains one of the largest hurdles to human life–time has not changed that. I applaud Scarcity for the authentic and heart-wrenching take on the topic; moreover, beyond reminiscence on life-altering experiences and death, Aveilut is one of the most terrifying and sublime metal compositions I’ve heard, marrying the best of multiple challenging music scenes together. While Aveilut may not be able to bring people back to life, the album is a triumphant artistic attempt at reconciling with deep internal unrest. 

Recommended tracks: Aveilut (it flows too well as one track)
You may also like: Pyrrhon, Xenoglyph, Jute Gyte, SkyThala, Warforged
Final verdict: 9/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Metal-Archives page

Label: The Flenser – Bandcamp | Website | Facebook

Scarcity is:
– Brendon Randall-Myers (all instruments)
– Doug Moore (vocals)