Symphony III  - Monolith  (Flood The Earth Records)

 This is the latest effort of this obscure entity, as you probably know, this band, formed by Mr. Stijn van Cauter back in 1999, delivers an infernal Ambient Funeral Drone, his quite extensive discography (six albums in six years, including its ultra-limited debut split Cd with I Dream No More) has showed an impressive musical direction, this time “Symphony III – Monolith” (its seventh work) isn’t the exception. This album consists in four tracks clocked at 74 minutes; the opening one “Thus…” is nothing less than an ambient, keyboard driven version of “Also Sprach Zarathustra” originally created by the German composer Richard Strauss in 1896, this track (more a sort of intro really, reaching only three minutes in contrast with the extremely long following tracks) delivers the perfect preamble to the infernally slow, agonizing experience to come. The ambient keyboard funeral melodies fill this album from the beginning to the end, becoming the main responsible for the dramatic, somewhat depressive atmospheres. Explosive ultra low and slow droning riffs adds a hellish, oppressive and suffocating aura, only increased by the ultra low, occasional guttural grunts, which melt its sound with the intense musical background. “Symphony III – Monolith” is not an easy to listen album, in fact, is very dense, thick and very complex in its monolithic simplicity, all tracks (excluding “Thus”) ranges from the 15 to 30 minutes making of this album a complete sensorial experience, this is not the kind of Cd you listen in your car or drinking beers with your old friends, if you really want to understand and go deep into this excellent musical piece, prepare yourself; wait until night, find a lonely place and surrender your mind to all kind of reflections and introspections, then and only then you will enjoy this album as much as I do… But if you aren’t a Funeral Doom or Drone Metal diehard, you will probably kill yourself after the first ten minutes… (AP)