Continuing to bat cleanup, i.e. reviewing the albums from 2017 I should have written about when they came out originally, the next on the list is Austrian Anomalie. I won’t pretend I knew about this band, formerly a one-man show, but now a full collective led by Marrok. Yet somehow I heard many of the bands he contributed live performances to (Harakiri for the Sky, Heretoir, The Vision Bleak). Basically take something atmospheric black from Germany/Austria, and Marrok seems to be involved, but it looks like Anomalie is his personal main focused creation.

Seven cuts, Visions, on the album then all have atmospheric black foundation, but being that these Visions must have been inspired by different experiences the songs actually display eclectic variety. This may have caused me to struggle somewhat on how to collect the thoughts about Visions, and that must have delayed this review to show up on time. The Wanderer is blasting and double bass dense, A Monument starts with a grating tremolo at first, and Illumination has clean shouts for vocals, Starless Nights weaves in and out, but there is one common theme permeating Visions, despite the particular song’s specifics. The uniting theme is forceful passion, personal, desperate plea for help. Smirking, with folded arms (White Forest), or torn between fuzzed religious experience and total acoustic clear out (A Monument), these Visions always crystallize with a palpable picture. In the end, without knowing or reading the lyrics, I was just playing these at random, trying to guess what the piece may be about. Take Towards the Sun. Emerging as if from alcoholic stupor, bottles rattling away, slowly comes out its full instrumental strength. The clearing of the mind eventually emerges, only then a loss of what the previous existence has been fully realized. The best clean epic religious choir since Deathspell Omega (or now Batushka) gives a new promise to life, but clean end is no proof this poor lost soul won’t stumble again.

And so I sat there, listening to Visions, the mind in full imaginary flight. When albums make me think (and feel) like that, despite the fact whether they are heavy, light, black, white, fully atmospheric or not, I come to conclusion and recommendation that they would be worth your while too. This is the case with Anomalie Visions.