Auris Apothecary (Bloomington, IN) released one of the best albums of 2014: Book of Sand--The Bees and the Butterflies. Like many Auris Apothecary releases, The Bees and the Butterflies was limited to fifty lathe cut ten inch records. With this the label maintained their exploritory nature when it comes to physical releases, and also continued their trend of establishing meaning and substance with physical releases in an impersonal and failing digital world. Art has meaning and purpose. Art is not always accessible. Art is where you seek it.
What Book of Sand crafts on this release is a powerful droning slab of avant black metal. Everything in its right place. The songs are not a testament to the raging fury of the void. Rather, Book of Sand seemed compelled to find a cold beauty in the abstract melancholy of the natural world. There is a swirling haze surrounding the songs that seeps into the ears of the listener. The wailing screams are buried under the swelling guitar tempest as the blasting drums find little breathing room. Everything in its right place. The use of the cello throughout the album is the siren voice that breaks you upon the rocky shore. The cello rings somber and unsettling notes that continually establish a ghostly presence, often imbuing the songs with a quaint instrumental voice as if telling an old folk tale . Walls of well spaced feedback and reverb are ever present. Subtle tempo shifts take shape as the drums slow from blasting to simple and precise. The guitars are constantly flowing with churning ambition, as the layered noisy elements of the songs combine with the other instrumentation to develop an all encompassing state of thrall. Everything in its right place...
Book of Sand are at their height when all the elements within song come together or are laid bare as in the song Wayfarring Stranger (cello only). With The Bees and the Butterflies, Book of Sand have compiled a standout album. The album is short in running time. However, it is deep with preceived power, emotion, and presence, ultimately leaving the listener wanting more. Coyly melodic, The Bees and the Butterflies is a thorough and engimatic album, bound by tradition and steeped in the overwhelming confines of failing modernity. What will come to pass will pass, and Book of Sand are primed to stand headlong in any oncoming surge.
aurisapothecary.bandcamp.com/album/aax-091-the-bees-and-the-butterflies
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