After a seven-year wait, psychedelic rockers Blood Ceremony are back with their new album The Old Ways Remain (Rise Above Records). This is their fifth record and it sees the Canadian quartet successfully add Folk, Pop, and Jazz elements to their already multifaceted, woozy psychedelic rock.
Nick Fiction (aka Nick Brewer), the only remaining member from the last Roses Never Fade album, is joined by Nathan “Nate” Opposition of Ancient VVisdom fame (because now AVV have, like, distortion and stuff he clearly needs another acoustic outlet), and The Way To Light’s Austin Rathmell with the intention of producing brooding acoustic neofolk.
There is no percussion here, no other instrumentation, just a pure, minimalist strumming and vocal methodology, that endeavours to evoke a monastic, empty church feel.
Starting out with some annoying swooshing noises (and little else) that fill the whole of the five minutes (!) of opening track ‘To Valleys And Shadows’, the second Roses Never Fade album, Devil Dust (Neuropa) is clearly trying to set an ambience of reflection and prepare the listener for a melancholy moment of introspection, a mood that isn’t achieved either on the introduction, or once the album proper commences.
A pattern soon emerges as tracks directly alternate between a simple, uncomplicated acoustic picking interspersed and shrouded with embellishing motifs and backed with oh so earnest whispers, and harmony vocal songs over strumming. Unfortunately neither approach is fully effective, especially once the pattern is noted, as neither the music nor the vocal is dark or interesting enough to draw the required atmosphere. There is no being enveloped into a state of other, or past, worldliness, such as the induced meditative mental journey that Ulver’s Kveldssanger (Head Not Found) inspires.
Whether seeking to yield a particular emotive or reflective response, or simply playing unassuming songs, Devil Dust doesn’t really achieve anything. At its best, neofolk, or rather acoustic neofolk (for neofolk is more a shared ideology than any real musical consistency, of which the Cold Meat Industry and industrial/dark wave inspired works of artists like Blood Axis, Ordo Rosario Equilibrio and Amber Asylum are the more interesting and suggestive) at the very least induces emotions, sympathies and reactions. Devil Dust just happens, really, and while it’s a quite nice when it’s on, that’s it. It doesn’t emote, or inspire much beyond apathy or boredom.
4.5/10
STEVE TOVEY