Aural Aggravation

Room312 – 24th October 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

You know you’re in ‘epic’ territory when an album contains just two tracks (or one, depending on the edition). With a running time of thirty-two minutes, The Between is inching into the bracket of monster works that includes Earth 2, Sleep’s Dopesmoker, or much of Sunn O)))’s output – or Swans for that matter – but still. What they promise is ‘a long-form suite of experimental metal that runs the gamut of their whole discography’, described by the band as “a guided meditation through death and dying”, which ‘takes liberal doses of ancient Eastern philosophies on life and death and pairs them with a modern existential despair.’

And so it is that the vinyl release features the half-hour long ‘The Between’ split across two sides, while the digital version features the track unbroken, and paired with a ‘bonus’ track in the form of ‘Remember Death’, which has a running time of over twenty minutes. In short, this is an absolute fucking behemoth.

And it doesn’t stop there: this material was recorded with a twelve-piece lineup. Yes, you read that right. Said lineup features contributions from Oli Genn-Bash (Codex Serafini) on saxophone, virtuosic guitar solos from Alexander Brown (Infected Dead), sound design by new recruit Jack D’Arcy and notably, the return of Dane Cross (Sacred Son) on vocals. No wonder they pitch it as ‘Dawnwalker’s most ambitious work yet.’

I feel a degree of preparation is required for this experience. Candles are lit, whisky is poured. And I’ve brought the bottle up to my office because I suspect that I’ll be needing a refill before the album’s over, and I don’t feel like breaking the spell by pausing it and heading downstairs.

‘The Between’ begins with a bell chime. It rings on… and on… hushed spoken word and hovering tones conjure a rich atmosphere. There’s a magical mysticism about it, as well as a slow-build as rolling cymbals swell and drones hang, thickening the air. Over time, the instrumentation shifts, and doomy folk transitions towards post-rock, then towards cinematic progressive soundscapes. Four minutes in, it goes large… and there’s no looking back from here. It twists and turns, and takes myriad unexpected paths, with a sudden lurch into sludgy guttural metal. With dark, growly noise sharing space with huge progginess, and the riffs lurching this way and that, there’s a schizophrenic feel which begins to take hold after about five minutes. Nine minutes in, a wild solo simply explodes, and POW! Moments later, there’s a sax break. It’s simply too much to process rationally.

Ambitious isn’t the word, really. We’re talking about an album – A SONG – that veers more or less between Black Sabbath and Radiohead. It’s nicely produced, but where does that sit when you’re confronted with such extreme contrasts? ‘The Between’ is a head-spinning, brain-bending experience.,

The same is true of ‘Remember Death’. It begins with haunting, post-rock picked guitar and spoken word, and introduces the idea of years and life itself being cyclical: it’s gentle, its calm, and it’s human. Lyrically, it’s deep, deep, deep… ‘I know it’s an uncomfortable subject, but it shouldn’t be’, says the speaker. And it’s true. Death in our society remains a taboo subject. But why? That as a species we are afraid of death is one thig, but our avoidance of the topic is simply wrong, and the words of ‘Remember Death’ articulate all of this magnificently.

The simple fact is that death is inevitable and we all shall die. Preparing a will or something is good, but simply an acknowledgement of the inevitable rather than fully facing it. Facing it is to live every day like it’s your last. And the fact is, it may be, because you never know.

Things start getting particularly brain-bending around four minutes in. by this point, the atmosphere is hypnotic. You’re invested. You’re open, vulnerable. “The existence that we have now is not real. It’s an illusion. What we see as existence is fundamentally mistaken. What we see and perceive and taste and touch and feel is all filtered by subjective elements… and thus, we do not see reality.” And there is some truth in this: we each experience our own reality. We see colours differently, and our reality is simply our individual experience. It’s why eye-witness accounts of an event vary so. Wildly different as they may be, they will all be true for the person recounting the event. “Through a perfect death, we regain that perception of what is real…” the narrative continues. And this is where it really starts to get difficult, and strange. It is a very, very difficult listen. It continues in this vein, expounding the principles of Gnosticism, while the guitars gradually ebb and flow. The instrumental shifts are subtle, and ‘Remember Death’ contrast dramatically with ‘The Between’.

This would have worked well as a double album, but equally ‘Remember Death’ would have worked as a standalone album. Then again, they’d probably prefer that it was situated as a satellite work, being so far removed from the main release and their other work.

However you approach it, this release documents the work of immensely imaginative band at a creative peak, and it provides much food for thought.

AA