adg211288 Australian atmospheric black metal duo Mesarthim have quickly become a productive group since the release of their debut full-length album Isolate (2015), with no less than six new releases put out during 2016; their second studio album .- -... ... . -. -.-. . (Absence), a single (added as a bonus track to physical releases of Isolate) and four EP's. 2017 has already seen two of those EP's put together for a physical release compilation, The Great Filter/Type III, and now their first new material of the year, Presence. It is a three track EP containing about twenty minutes of music.

Much like the Pillars (2016) EP was said to be a concluding release to what the band started on Isolate, Presence is said to do the same for Absence. The key difference is that Pillars really did feel like more of the same as Isolate but Presence feels quite different to Absence, also being more fresh in respect to the group's entire discography. There are similar elements of course and if anything it's closer to Isolate and Pillars than any of the releases put out since, but it also feels like a band taking their sound a step further. The cosmic vibes of their atmospheric black metal sound are still here, but it's even more psychedelic and trance-like than ever before, with the synths being used more dominantly than ever, including extended full-on synth sections where the metal elements get removed entirely, as in Eschaton Part I, which also adds some atmospheric female vocals to the music during the metal parts. The band's usual growling vocals barely get a look in. More familiar ground is Eschaton Part II and the title track, where the metal gets removed only in briefer dosages.

Presence is easily the most genre boundary pushing release from Mesarthim yet. It might be fair to say that for some listeners this EP may be the point where the duo finally went too far, but for my part I'm as enchanted as ever by their majestic sounds mixed with a harsh yet atmospheric black metal backdrop, yet equally enthralled in the moments where they remove the latter. In fact, this may even be my favourite EP from Mesarthim to date. A superb twenty minutes cosmic trip.

adg211288 The Great Filter/Type III (2017) is a compilation release by the Australian atmospheric black metal duo Mesarthim. It consists of two lengthy tracks that were released separately during the tail-end of 2016 as digital only releases. Italian label Avantgarde Music, who has released the physical copies of Mesarthim's other work, has now grouped them together into one forty minute long release.

I've reviewed the two EP's separately before, so if you follow my writing you may have read the next parts of this review before. Having reviewed them I wasn't originally going to review this compilation but I've decided it can't hurt to promote this great band a bit more.

The Great Filter:

Not content with dropping their second full-length album .- -... ... . -. -.-. . (2016) (Absence) and before that the EP's Pillars (2016) and Spire (2016), this year, Australia's enigmatic black metal duo Mesarthim are back again with another new release. The Great Filter (2016), another EP, features a single song, the band's longest track to date at 21:33 in length.

Having come away from Absence a bit disappointed given how much I like Mesarthim's debut album Isolate (2015), and by extension the very similar Pillars EP, The Great Filter finds me appreciating their work a bit more again. Still producing black metal of the cosmic variety this long track moves through various different black metal moods and even some softer sections. At one time you'll hear some spacey synths. At another there's some quite direct guitar riffs for atmospheric black metal. Another time the synths will even sound a bit techno. Then there's a section when it all noticeably speeds up. Then it goes symphonic. Later on there's a bit of Morse Code, a little throwback to the prior album no doubt. On paper it may sound as a load of little smaller ideas thrown together as one track but hey, it works and easily comes across as their most adventurous composition to date. The vocals are the usual indiscernible growl that I'm used to hearing from Mesarthim by this point. Impossible to follow, but their tortured style has always worked well with the blackened atmospheric metal they play and they got back a bit of the majestic feel of Isolate here without rehashing that album and that's definitely a plus.

The Great Filter has brought Mesarthim way back up in my estimations after I didn't enjoy Absence as much as I'd hoped to and I definitely find it to be the best of the Mesarthim 2016 releases up until this point...

Type III:

...Just ten days after the release of the EP The Great Filter (2016) and Australia's enigmatic black metal duo Mesarthim are back already with yet another EP release. TYPE III (2016) is the band's sixth release this year and like it's predecessor sees Mesarthim delivering a single long composition, only a little shorter than the last one at 18:40 in length.

It may initially look as if TYPE III is another exercise in the same sort of thing that Mesarthim did on The Great Filter but this is actually quite a different track within the band's atmospheric black metal spectrum. It feels more structured compared to the chopping and changing ideas of The Great Filter and actually reminds me a bit more of the band's debut album Isolate (2015), especially with the way the synths are used. The guitars, like a bit of the previous EP, take a very direct role in this track though and don't just provide a raw lo-fi atmosphere, but actually bring a surprisingly classic metal feel to parts of the song. There's less different sounds than The Great Filter and you're more likely to hear ideas make a reappearance in this track but as but much as The Great Filter worked I can't help but like TYPE III a whole lot more. I'd go as far to say that it may even be Mesarthim's best track to date.

I certainly didn't expect another Mesarthim release so soon after The Great Filter so they may even surprise us with another release before the year is out the way they are going. But as is I've definitely found the band's EP releases to be more worthwhile this year than the full-length album and despite earlier words in my reviews about The Great Filter being the best Mesarthim 2016 release up until this point the band have quickly supplanted it. Is this it or will they do it again?

Conclusion:

Ultimately Type III did mark the end of Mesarthim's 2016 releases, but with the speed the band works I wouldn't be too surprised to see this year deliver a lot more than this compilation. Both the late 2016 EP's were very recommendable releases and now joined on one CD it's going to be the best time ever to pick them up.

adg211288 ...Just ten days after the release of the EP The Great Filter (2016) and Australia's enigmatic black metal duo Mesarthim are back already with yet another EP release. TYPE III (2016) is the band's sixth release this year and like it's predecessor sees Mesarthim delivering a single long composition, only a little shorter than the last one at 18:40 in length.

It may initially look as if TYPE III is another exercise in the same sort of thing that Mesarthim did on The Great Filter but this is actually quite a different track within the band's atmospheric black metal spectrum. It feels more structured compared to the chopping and changing ideas of The Great Filter and actually reminds me a bit more of the band's debut album Isolate (2015), especially with the way the synths are used. The guitars, like a bit of the previous EP, take a very direct role in this track though and don't just provide a raw lo-fi atmosphere, but actually bring a surprisingly classic metal feel to parts of the song. There's less different sounds than The Great Filter and you're more likely to hear ideas make a reappearance in this track but as but much as The Great Filter worked I can't help but like TYPE III a whole lot more. I'd go as far to say that it may even be Mesarthim's best track to date.

I certainly didn't expect another Mesarthim release so soon after The Great Filter so they may even surprise us with another release before the year is out the way they are going. But as is I've definitely found the band's EP releases to be more worthwhile this year than the full-length album and despite earlier words in my reviews about The Great Filter being the best Mesarthim 2016 release up until this point the band have quickly supplanted it. Is this it or will they do it again?

adg211288 Not content with dropping their second full-length album .- -... ... . -. -.-. . (2016) (Absence) and before that the EP's Pillars (2016) and Spire (2016), this year, Australia's enigmatic black metal duo Mesarthim are back again with another new release. The Great Filter (2016), another EP, features a single song, the band's longest track to date at 21:33 in length.

Having come away from Absence a bit disappointed given how much I like Mesarthim's debut album Isolate (2015), and by extension the very similar Pillars EP, The Great Filter finds me appreciating their work a bit more again. Still producing black metal of the cosmic variety this long track moves through various different black metal moods and even some softer sections. At one time you'll hear some spacey synths. At another there's some quite direct guitar riffs for atmospheric black metal. Another time the synths will even sound a bit techno. Then there's a section when it all noticeably speeds up. Then it goes symphonic. Later on there's a bit of Morse Code, a little throwback to the prior album no doubt. On paper it may sound as a load of little smaller ideas thrown together as one track but hey, it works and easily comes across as their most adventurous composition to date. The vocals are the usual indiscernible growl that I'm used to hearing from Mesarthim by this point. Impossible to follow, but their tortured style has always worked well with the blackened atmospheric metal they play and they got back a bit of the majestic feel of Isolate here without rehashing that album and that's definitely a plus.

The Great Filter has brought Mesarthim way back up in my estimations after I didn't enjoy Absence as much as I'd hoped to and I definitely find it to be the best of the Mesarthim 2016 releases up until this point...

adg211288 .- -... ... . -. -.-. . (2016) is the second full-length album by the enigmatic Australian atmospheric black metal act Mesarthim. Seemingly looking to become all that more mysterious, that title is in Morse Code. It means Absence. All the song titles are in Morse Code as well, though they translate to just 1 through 6, so aren't actually all that interesting. Anyway, Absence, as I've going to refer to it in this text from now on, is Mesarthim's fourth release in 2016 after the single Suffocate and the EP's Pillars and Spire.

Despite being considered a full-length, Absence is actually only forty seconds longer than the Pillars EP. I guess the band are judging it based on the number of actual tracks they include on the release. This has six whereas Pillars had four. I think effectively this is more like the band's third album rather than their second as it's officially considered, because of that. Though the distinction may also have something to do with the fact that Pillars felt like a continuation of where their debut album Isolate (2015) left off, where Absence sees Mesarthim trying something different. The start of the next chapter, if you like.

This idea of not rehashing their first album is to Mesarthim's credit, but it also doesn't change the fact that the element that really made them stand out on Isolate, being their really majestic sounding synths, are all but completely missing on Absence, certain parts of the fifth track being a noted exception. Instead they draw more heavily on traditional space ambient to make something that overall sounds hell of a lot colder. The vocals sound even more tortured as well. In fact this isn't far off being a depressive black metal record to my ears. Isolate had similar vocals but those synths made it far too uplifting to think of it as depressive music. This though, is an entirely different kettle of fish.

And it's not bad stuff, but it does sure as hell feel a lot less unique compared to what the band did on Isolate. It does not help my personal experience of the album that I actually reviewed a very similar release by a band called Auriga recently, the album which in point of fact was released by Avantgarde Music, who Mesarthim are also with. VII - Dimensions of Asymmetry (2016) was the album in question, and Absence is of the same ilk except it doesn't have the exceptionally long straight ambient sections. If those put you off Auriga's album then Absence may be more to your liking, but that's something that swings both ways. While Auriga's pure ambient sections could felt too elongated, they did also offer a variation to their album that Absence largely lacks.

Variation wasn't exactly a strong suit on Isolate either, but the style of synths used at least gave each tracks melodies their own identities and for the most part that's what the tracks on Absence are sorely in need of. The last two stand out the most, the fifth because there are more influences on display, including a feeling of being a mix of the old and the new as far as Mesarthim's music is concerned. The sixth has a more triumphant feel to its synths compared to the rest of the album. Perhaps more to the point though the atmosphere that Isolate captured, that of being both majestic and harsh at the same time, has been lost on Absence.

I really enjoyed Isolate to the point of considering Mesarthim one of the best new black metal acts based on it, but I did worry that they may be a one trick pony after Pillars showed itself to be more of the same. While they have certainly dispelled such a notion with Absence, it does unfortunately come in the form of a much less remarkable release.