Sevendeaths - Remote Sympathy (2017)

Edinburgh-based musician Steven Shade expands on the VST-centric grandiosity of his 2013 debut Sevendeaths set ‘Concreté Misery’ with this rather enveloping new album for the Luckyme crew.

A certain cinematic quality has always been evident in the Sevendeaths sound, but he really ups the ante on ‘Remote Sympathy,’ the ten tracks benefitting from the inclusion of natural sound sources via spectral resynthesis and sampling techniques and contributions from Rafe Fitzpatrick and Iban Perez.

Fans of Jóhann Jóhannsson and the recent output on Subtext should pay attention as Sevendeaths really captures a stunning snapshot of expertly crafted drone and power ambient geared as “both a celebration of life and human strength and an acceptance of the frailty of the human spirit.”

The conceptual nature of the album doesn’t weigh too heavily on the music however, this is no forlorn exercise in noise brutality; rather the moments of darkness act as brief interludes to Shade’s undoubted capacity to sculpt and orchestrate synthesis of shimmering incandescence.