Artist: Drowning The Light
Country: Australia
Label: Dark Adversary Productions
Formats: CD
Year: 2025
In Azgorh’s own words, ‘Current 1366’ is one of the rawest Drowning The Light full-length albums in recent years, but at the same time a spiritual extension of the ‘Conquer Or Serve’ albums released earlier this year. The latter may not come as a complete surprise, given that the artwork for this latest album clearly mirrors that of the five albums we were treated to at the beginning of January. Musically, however, Drowning The Light, for the most part at least, has been on a rather mellow path, only allowing glimmers of the former Raw Black Metal to shine through on the occasional EPs.
However, anyone hoping to hear Drowning The Light as it was in the 2000s or as on ‘From The Abyss’ (2015) and ‘Cursed Below The Waves’ (2018), for example, will be somewhat disappointed, I think. For sure it is a bit rawer and slightly more unpolished, but it surely isn’t that far removed from what Azgorh has been doing the past few years.
In fact, I would say that ‘Current 1366’ is actually the most inconsistent Drowning The Light album to date. Whether exactly that is the case or not, it certainly feels as if it has been cobbled together from leftovers from previous sessions that didn’t quite fit into those five ‘Conquer Or Serve’-albums. Not only is it musically all over the place, vocally it’s also a hodgepodge of different approaches. That doesn’t mean there isn’t enough to enjoy, but it certainly doesn’t listen like an album. Thematically, it is based on the numerical value of the number 1366, to which Azgorh attaches all kinds of mythical and magical significance, but although that could have served as an overarching leitmotif, ‘Current 1366’ feels way more like a compilation album.
The musical value and somewhat contradictory nature of the music is perhaps best expressed in ‘The Veiled River Of Occult Wisdom’. This second track is somewhat more primitive in nature than we are used to from Drowning The Light, but still has that somewhat ethereal tone of the later recordings. Vocally, this track also showcases Azgorh’s antics, with the standard creaking vocals alternating with something that could almost pass for a grunt, but the most striking thing is the vocals that lie somewhere in between, reminding me of the Dutch band Countess.
It’s by no means a bad album, but I can’t quite shake the feeling that ‘Current 1366’ falls somewhat short of the standard we’ve come to expect from Drowning The Light. Perhaps it’s not surprising that with one EP and six full-length albums released this year alone, there’s bound to be the occasional release that doesn’t quite measure up. It’s good to know that even Azgorh, who usually seems to have many more hours in a day than us mere mortals, is just a human being after all.
