Psyclon Nine is back after a macabre silence.
Created in 2000 by Nero Bellum (vocals/keyboards/guitar/bass, Skold, Not My God), the project also counts on Rotny Ford (guitar/keyboards/bass), Jon Siren (drums, Skold, I Am X) and Dante Phoenix (guitar) for the release of Less to Heaven, its seventh album.
The album begins with Blood In’s soft clean introduction which slowly takes us into a darker, more disturbing universe, and which will be joined by percussions to progress towards saturation, then to See You All In Hell, which surrounds us with its darkness while welcoming weighing vocals. The quite soaring track reveals more aggressive elements like the piercing saturated vocalist’s voice and simple but heavy riffs which feed the oppression just like on Money And Sex And Death, a composition which starts with the same elements before literally exploding. The extreme saturation strengthens this violent shade, but the band still tempers it with heady keyboards, which continue on The Poison Will Deaden The Pain and its dark Industrial roots. The band continues to add raw aggression, but also some screams of terror, while Off With Their Heads becomes catchy and more accessible. Some more majestic sounds also join the mix, which continues with the melancholic X’s On Her Eyes and its haunting clean vocals, sometimes replaced by screams. The track remains very soft and heady between those waves of darkness, before Catastrophic comes to bring a tragic and miserable dimension to this soaring sound. It becomes more and more oppressive until the end, which leads us to Après Moi, Le Déluge (“After Me, The Deluge” in French), a long and haunting instrumental composition which gently moves towards this impressive wall of sound which drops us into nothingness. Blood Out, the last track, slightly reminds us of the first track while being darker and heavier, then finally giving way to an ice-cold silence.
Psyclon Nine explores more airy and atmospheric lands with Less to Heaven. The band stays in its Industrial roots, its hints of Aggrotech and its apocalyptic atmosphere, but the different approach opens other more dark and soaring rooms.
75/100