Black metal influenced styles are numerous. Blackened death is well known and played by a myriad of bands. Blackened doom is some of the most morose music you can find. But can black and gothic co-exist? Technically speaking, both speak for the dark side of being, yet if black applies an earnestly evil aspect to it, then gothic is seen as more pompous and frilly, so the combination is not natural. Yet, if gothic were to drift towards more stoic and doomy, then perhaps it could work out? One mysterious Londoner O-A made such attempt with his project Light of the Morning Star and Cemetery Glow EP is a testament to that.

If An Empty Hearse starts dissonant and detuned with a slight hint of debauchery, then it quickly becomes prim and withdrawn, with steady gothic rhythms taking over, guitars keeping their distortion levels. You can call this music strange and demented, yet the cover art depicts it perfectly. Tombs glowing with eerie purple is the perfect symbol to portray Cemetery Glow, the path of Light of the Morning Star leading straight into the dark convent. Clean voice reminding me of Crematorium hovers around it all preaching its vampirism necromantic message. Punky rock’n’roll may want to burst from underneath the muddy guitars of Black Throne Ascension, but the gravity of the atmosphere prevails again. Never to succumb to synth dankness, keyboard sound bites are logically blended ever so slightly on Wraith, guitar riff vultures circling overhead on that track, hoping for pray to fall in their talons, the whole song emanating perverted delectability through and through.

Death rock, gothic and blackened atmospheres all combined in one, Cemetery Glow by Light of the Morning Star is a pretty unique release to merge everything onto the same platter, and not make it sound gimmicky. The coldness and malevolency of the music is real here.