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The Blood Mountain Black Metal Choir / Isleptonthemoon / Wounds of Recollection—All Things Which Came Before (Self-released)

All Things Which Came Before is technically a split release featuring three distinct black metal-associated projects. From a slightly different vantage, it’s a three-song EP by the same musician, who goes by the moniker Annos and seems to be located somewhere near Atlanta, Georgia. The Blood Mountain Black Metal Choir might be Annos’ most prominent project (and to this reviewer’s ears, his best). It’s grounded in local space: Blood Mountain is a peak among the Georgia Blue Ridge range. Isleptonthemoon and Wounds of Recollection, the other projects represented on the split, seek more abstract or hifalutin terrain, and the results are mixed.

The decidedly emo quality of Isleptonthemoon’s band name has its complement in the sorta sappy strings that whine underneath Annos’ breathy clean vocals in the opening minutes of “It Never Gets Easier.” Depending on your tolerance for such sad boy antics, it never gets better. The song eventually sharpens and harshens up its tone, but it remains invested in the aesthetic value of big feels and bigger chords. Wounds of Recollection provides the split’s longest track, “Soon, This Will All Be a Beautiful Dream.” Annos claims a DSBM orientation for Wounds of Recollection, but the track has some of the prettiest riffage on the split.

For this reviewer, the Blood Mountain Black Metal Choir delivers the most passionate and engaging song, “Language.” There’s a Cascadian tone to the music, atmospheric and redolent of frost-crusted pines (are we still in Georgia?). When things get expansive around the song’s two-minute mark, the melodic gestures don’t drain the song’s negationist intensity. “Language” is not equal to the best moments on the “Folklore” demo the project issued earlier this year (see “3:19,” in particular), but it’s another move in the band’s attempt to graft the cold and abrasive qualities of black metal to Southern Appalachian cultural climes.

One can credit Annos with ambition. But the songs he creates under the Blood Mountain Black Metal Choir have depth and sustained heart. Among Annos’ various musical modalities, this reviewer wishes he’d brood longer on Blood Mountain and stay grounded on the Earth.

Jonathan Shaw

[metalby]

Isleptonthemoon [Only the Stars Know of My Misfortune]. 2024. Bandcamp, Spotify, Instagram, Amazon, Youtube. Twitter(metalone).

Only the Stars Know of My Misfortune