Tetrad Veil – Solar Sequence C45

Involition Records

If you enjoy listening to long and stifling processions of funeralistic doom flavored industrial, then this is your ticket. Solar Sequence is a brilliantly contriturated death industrial side project from one of the members of doom metal band Aldebaran. In four lengthy tracks, Tetrad Veil stomps through oozing frequencies and minimal but lumbering and hammering percussion with an array of dislocated vocals that range from Burning Witch screeches to ritual chanting you might find on a Root album.

Starting with “D.W.R.”, here you have a great example of how to properly tune your electronics set-up so that it retains the correct balance of doom/industrial and ritual so that it drives along, remains repetitive but is carried on a sullen arc of stops and starts and transitions. What is very effective here is that the sonic elements here don’t completely bleach out Tetrad Veil‘s song-writing. Much like Atarah‘s tape which was previous reviewed, this guy plays, or at least understands traditional (by that I mean guitar/bass/drums) instrumentation with respect to “heavy”, and knows how to transition “traditional” song-writing capabilities into electronic territory. All of the tracks have this accent, though “L.W.R.” by contrast sounds the least like it was written with a doom-specific intention in mind and more like a lock-step Navicon Torture Technologies track, but still retains the continuity of the previous songs. Still, you can hear ghosts of the traditional instruments in the filthy chambers of Tetrad Veil‘s bleak assortment of frequencies and thuds.

A small complaint could be that, with all the turns that “D.W.R.” takes, the other tracks make similar transitions and shifts, and generally they all have a similar, somewhat predictable feel to them. Perhaps it is that this album appeals to one’s heaviest metal sense but this convention may be reveal a certain static drag to it…however, is it not true that good doom (metal or otherwise) really rests on repetition and familiarity? Tempos here remain constant. No sense in throwing a Ministry break down on here just for “variation”.

While summaries of this album have mentioned the money-shot “ritualism”, “it” certainly exists, but only so far as the ritualism involved in playing a passage over and over until it makes you sick (only in the best way) like bleak doom metal band Corrupted. The low end source on “STIMULATION VS. INTIMACY” is brandished like a primitive bass guitar chug with plenty of time-space to get baked and watch the universe expand…so I suppose this involves another kind of ritual as it continues Aldebaran‘s cosmic obsession; the winding reiterations circumnavigate ad-nauseam.

Part of what makes similar projects that feature dark and repetitive inclinations like Trepaneringsritualen successful is that they draw out something catchy – be it a chorus or a melody – that gives the song more than just a dark/evil/whatever mood or affect. Tetrad Veil hasn’t really nailed that, yet, as low end atonality coupled with shrill tenseness really dictates an oppressive mood without any other major milemarkers besides the mad-monk chanting. Tetrad Veil doesn’t seem like a novice to synths, but there seems to be a little bit of hesitation to really push the sounds in challenging ways, especially on the somewhat lifeless “Wake The Dormant”.

With potentials yet to be fulfilled, this tape nevertheless should be sought out…it’s a really solid debut that has a high pedigree of composition working for it with some good sound choices. Additionally, with all the mindless death-industrial flag waving in the fuckin world today, this is a release that stands out because of its doom metal approach.

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