Licht erlischt...and Below, the Retrograde Disciples LP

While Horn, the other project of Nerrath, features qualatitve, raw black metal, there isn�t much of it on this record. Only some details are influenced by the black musical art he seems to like most. That�s not bad at all, as Licht Erlischt� is upholding, what its name promises (light goes out), as it�s drowning every positive thought one could have. This is achieved through the utilisation of dragging structures and moaning vocals which are haunting. The seven tracks are, at least partially, quite long, what can be a bit problematic at times. The impressive fact is, that the music only utilizes the basis instruments, at least in the majority of time, and still it�s this powerfull, fascinating and dark.Mastermind Nerrath uses several effects in a really adept way which are refining the sound � and therefore the atmosphere � or even reshaping the whole song, without really changing to much. You can breathe through, if you feared, that everything is full of effects as he mostly uses subtle reverberation effects, which are sparsely sawn. The vocals use reverberation effects as well, to fit the constructions of sound, which is nicely done. The vocals are pending between a moaning -clearly sung-,tormented screaming or rarely even dark, nearly growled style. The songs are � how else could it be,since it�s doom, sometimes so slow, that you could nearly think they stopped.Although the songs are permanently streaked with melodies, there are � caused through the slow-paced tempo � some moments are at least bordering to become boring. Especially the longer tracks are struggling against this fact, and mostly they manage to avert the crisis, as some new melody or such is kicking in, which catches your attention. Of course there are some patterns, that don�t achieve getting interesting again for instance A People To Be Revised. Another little flaw is, that some melodies are quite akin across the record but that doesn�t really matter as the melodies in question are quite subtle. The production is a bit thin at times, but as that underlines the general mood, it doesn�t really matter as well.Conclusion:You could have guessed, that �And Below, The Retrograde Disciples is a good, if not great, record, since the debut was great and so were the records Nerrath released with his second project Horn. This record is the logical successor of The Narrow Path, although he renounces the growls nearly complete. The smaller flaws that can be found on this record are easy to forgive and therefore I can recommend it completely.____________________________________Written for http://threnodies.com