xdementia

Site Admin Posts: 409 Joined: 06 Jan 2006 Location: Boston

Post subject: One Lifeless Eye – 3 Lights Extinguished CD

Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 7:02 pm

One Lifeless Eye – 3 Lights Extinguished CD: http://onelifelesseye.com/
Small Sacrifice: http://smallsacrifice.net/

Overall Rating: B
Composition: B
Sounds: B
Production Quality: B
Concept: B+
Packaging: B+

I believe One Lifeless Eye is the new project from James Mccrea of the former Narcotic Dreams. Why he's changed the project name I cannot guess because this material appears to be the next logical progression from where he left off with the project. Featuring about 40 minutes of guitar-based deep, bleak, dark ambient 3 Lights Extinguished is about as hopeless as it can get.

From subdued drones, always moving and morphing, to screeching metallic feedback, washes of noise, and doomed melodies there is definite intention and succession created with these sounds. I find some of the high feedback sounds in the first two tracks “Pulsing Under A Veil Of Skin” and “Shining In The Eyes Of A Severed Head” to be a bit plain, but they are tactfully joined with some very interesting low and mid-ranged textures so as to soften the banality of the sound. Generally these first two tracks are a bit more drony and remind me of the result that would occur if Aeoga were to converge with the sound of Troum.

“Dispelled With An Umbral Breath” is one of the longer tracks here evolving from glassy, airy textures to a doomed pounding of disharmonious notes bringing to mind some kind of gothic funeral procession. Although these chords are struck over a period of about 5 minutes they don't get tiring because of the subtle layers placed just underneath the veil of comfort, slightly pulling at the edges and keeping things interesting.

“In The Absence Of Light” is an excellent closer being a classic build-up track but very well done as it managed to really sneak up on me unawares. Building from a simple bass drone to a seething mixture of flowing glassy bright tones, but with an extreme sickened dark undercurrent.

The whole disc is so damn dark and unforgiving I'm really feeling this one. It's very well done, the flow can be a little awkward in parts but it's really a disc that must be heard a few times to sink in, and after it continues to become much more enjoyable. A definite evolution from James' previous work under Narcotic Dreams, recommended for dark ambient fans and people interested in guitar-based drone.