Prolific guitarist Ryan Clackner returns with a new fusion of hill-country blues mixed with black metal titled Crestfallen Dusk. A truly unique take that, surprisingly hasn’t been done before to my knowledge. At face value, these two genres, you would think, couldn’t possibly fuse together, but the raw and rugged approach of this particular style of blues with the bleak sounds of black metal create for a unique and ultimately dark album that really itched a sound I never thought I wanted to experience. While still following the theme of the Moonlight Cypress Archetypes label, this is probably one of the more depressive and aggressive albums they’ve released, which makes sense given the fusion at hand here.
If you’re even somewhat familiar with Clackner’s guitaring, you’re too expect very well performed and written guitar pieces that transition seamlessly through blues style twangy-goodness and bleak, raw, tremolo black metal. The vocals are obscured and modified, very much sticking with your more traditional raw black metal style, but with some folk and bluesy touches every now and again. Personally, I find it a little bit unfortanate as I’d be very interested in actually knowing what the lyrics were saying in this case. With hill-country blues being so heavily centered around story telling, I wonder what tragic tales were being sung here. Other than that, there’s almost no flaws in the instrumentation.
There’s a clear pattern to the song writing. Broken up by blues, metal, blues, metal. Its a little predictable if you’re listening to it back to back. You’d think that’d be a bad thing, but the song writing is so good that you almost don’t even notice it. Personally, I find it rather funny hearing some of these traditional blues chords played in such a way, that I can’t help my self to find it so enjoyable. The album runs just a little over 44 and a half minutes, with each of the 6 tracks having a decent length to them, so there’s a lot to take in and enjoy picking out the details in each track. Personally, my favorite track was On the Outside of Town. Sounding as if Darkthrone’s Quintessence was written deep in the American south, a slow and steady stomp of a track with a climatic guitar ending that I was just hypnotized by. Certianly a must listen off of the album.
Each release is certainly a surprise from Clackner and his label, one release after another bringing something new, and they keep out doing each other one after another. This one so far has taken the cake for me personally as being my favorite release by far. Its such a unique take on black metal and blues that it clearly stands on the outside of all those genres and is able to create something uniquely its own. Definitely check this out if you’re even somewhat interested in either of these genres as you’d be surprised by what is in store.