Last week, ambient black metallers Urfaust released a full-length even sparer and more minimalist than its predecessors. Those who get bored when the duo put more ambience into their sound than metal, as they have in recent albums, won't like this much at first, because The Constellatory Practice is nearly all droning hums and far-away screeches. But listen to it long enough and it will grow on you.

Rather than a unified sound, Urfaust prefers to throw a variety pack of tracks at the listener. Vocalist IX uses a clean operatic vibrato for the most part on this album, but occasionally switches to an agonized scream for the blackened parts. Trail of the Conscience of the Dead's ponderous symphonic doom; it's preceded by False Sensorial Impressions, a pure blackened-ambient track lost in squeals of twisted metal and waves of distorted sound that gradually increase in volume and menace. The opening track shows us IX at his most ritualistic, singing through his neck in a drawn-out wail, backed by a choir-like chorus of himself singing the low parts; I'm reminded of Midnight Odyssey in parts of this one, though they don't evoke as cold an atmosphere.

Where these sounds come closest to meeting in the middle is on Behind the Veil of the Trance Sleep; some doom and melody match up with lots of abrasive background noise over echoing drums, with a psychedelic feel to the racket that forms the soundtrack for what would be an extemely unpleasant acid trip. Where metal fans may get lost a bit is in all the synth-ambient keyboard that pairs with the drone components to pervade virtually every track, which is sometimes rather drawn-out.

Those who have the patience to let Urfaust take its time and indulge in their often dragging ambient-and-drum portions will get rewarded with some very interesting black ambient experiments on the part of these two. I found it worth listening to.

https://urfaust.bandcamp.com/album/the-constellatory-practice-2.