Prophecy Productions – 7th December 2022
Christopher Nosnibor
Following on from ‘For Horror Eats the Light’, Fvnerals bring more darkness for December with ‘Ashen Era’ from the forthcoming album Let the Earth Be Silent. And truly, it’s a monster, a sprawling seven-and-a-half-minute beast that behind dark, murky, atmospheric in a haunting, ethereal ambient sort of a way, before crushingly heavy guitars grind out colossal drone over thunderous percussion.
If it feels like the end of the world, that’s probably because that’s the intention. The band explain the song and is place in the album’s development thus: “Inspired by the deeply destructive nature and harmful presence of our species, ‘Ashen Era’ was the first song that we wrote for this album, which also established its foundation", singer and bass player Tiffany Ström reveals. “In our writing process, we used dissonant orchestral instrumentation coupled with eerie vocals to ritualistically build up from a chant of despair to a state of acceptance. It is moving from the overwhelming longing for annihilation as well as the anxiety and guilt of our existence, to finding beauty and peace in our own impending end.”
Pic: Anja Bergman
This anxiety is something that’s been increasingly difficult to ignore, and it’s not just me and the sense of impending apocalypse that I’ve had for half my life: everything seems to be accelerating exponentially – climate change, consumption, population growth. The last few weeks have seen myriad news pieces on people complaining that Christmas markets have never been so busy and that traffic gridlock is suddenly no longer a rush hour or bank holiday thing, but from eight in the morning to nine at night.
In the wake of the pandemic, and with floods and droughts and fuel shortages and spiralling prices as demand for everything exceeds demand, as I’ve written previously, it feels as if we’re not only heading towards but already living in all of the dystopian futures featured in books and movies. That more writers and musicians are articulating these same feelings is cold comfort.
If one thing is becoming clear now, it’s that we have left it too late, and have almost certainly sealed our own fate, and now it seems that all we can do is make peace with this, and search for the ‘beauty and peace in our own impending end.’ It isn’t easy, if it’s even achievable, accelerating toward the abyss. But with ‘Ashen Era’, Fvnerals provide the perfect soundtrack.
AA
Aural Aggravation 