renkls
For a one man band, I must concede, Davidian (whoever he is) does put a lot of effort into his work with his one man band, Ashes. Whether or not the effort results in a completely engaging work is of course, another matter entirely. Though nominally in eight parts, the debut full length of Ashes is melded into one 46:49 track on CD for playback purposes.
The style of music is best described as ambient pagan black metal. You probably wouldn't guess it was played by one man, but seeing as I've told you, you'll probably be impressed at the effort he's put into making the album ebb and flow as a continuous piece. Of course, it's not seamless, as I'll discuss in a moment, nor is it exactly my cup of tea either.
Everytime I come back to this album, I wonder about some artistic decisions utilised in this album. For one, the vocals are downright awful. I didn't even know they were vocals, maybe just scratches in the music put in for effect; but no, the insectoid noises are actually heavily modified vocals which put a damper on my appriechiation for the album. Secondly, I should say that a 47 minute pagan black metal track sounds epic, and I'd be lying if I said that this was a completely true epic. About 23 minutes in, the album decides to take a trip to cliche-ville and drops a whole 15 minute nature sound piece dead in the middle of the album. Not only is it out of place, it's too long, and the fact the album is just one track means no skipping on CD...so even if the best part is after this nature sound, you'll just have to wait for it to end. Frustrating to say the least.
The music itself actually is at times, wonderful. The album excels best when it takes melodic interludes, rather then the black metal parts which falter due to the vocal style or slightly overlong sections.
Conclusively, I view this album divisively. I think it would be a perfect one track EP, cut out 20 minutes or so, and revamp those vocals; and you've got yourself a winner. As the pointlessly long whole that it is, I can't give it more then 2.5. Who knows, maybe other black metal fans will find it more appealing then I did.