Artist: Hidden Gateways
Album: Pineal Stargates
Label: Heathen Fawn Recordings
Year: 2024
When I read in the album description "Acoustic Alchemy meets harsh noise" I thought it was a joke--but thankfully it's not. I didn't realize before, but I really need more albums that combine these aesthetics. But there's also a lot more to the album than just those two poles, like found sounds, collage, synths, and industrial. Lots going on here! Overall, "Pineal Stargates" is richly and densely varied in its sounds, textures, and styles--eclectic, but somehow sonically it all fits together as a singular, cohesive experience. A lot of the noise albums I'm hearing lately have a clear trajectory and they adhere closely to it, which can be great, but I really liked how Hidden Gateways was willing to dare to diverge from expected paths, bringing in unexpected elements that make each song a unique experience from other tracks on the album.
The opener, "Slow-Burn," is a noise crescendo, very much like a prelude to establish the album's mood. "Gun-Demic" is sort of like a docu-industrial hybrid, starting with news broadcasts about contemporary gun violence before distorted vocals and electronic music kicks in. Where the album really took a left-turn and grabbed me was with "Eternal Departure," which blends fingerstyle acoustic folk/classical guitar with electric drum beat. "Kalilah" was another favorite, think Laurel Canyon 70s psych-folk meets dungeon-industrial. "Temples of Saturn," as the title suggests, is the most cosmic-psych on the album, featuring what sounds like an eBow on an electric guitar, reminding me of Michio Kurihara. "Biofeedback (Lesson 2)" is another distinct track, starting with a low bass pulse, alternating notes, before introduction atmospheric sounds of rain, thunder, a wolf howling, its among the more cinematic/atmospheric tracks. "Divine Empathy" new age synth glow with Godflesh-y distorted vocals in the background. The album concludes with "Buried Under the Altar of a False God," where the different stylistic strands of the album all come together in a dark, doomy, noise-guitar epic.
https://heathenfawnrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/pineal-stargates
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