The packaging really doesn't give much away, the outer wrapper featuring the slogan 'the angels know no sin. Repeat' in small black letters on a white background repeated endlessly. It's hypnotic, almost brainwashing in effect. The next layer - a single sheet, in fact - is a stark yet dense black on white silhouette of a forest canopy in winter, bereft of leaves: it's cold and borders on the abstract as the thick dark ink swirls. A further sheet contains a quotation, and the information 'Stars and Lights: Together we Fall' by Seasons (pre-din), and it is this which repeated in infinite permutations across the body of the CD, which is housed - finally - in a plain white card sleeve. This represents a near obsessive attention to detail, a cultivated image of abstraction and wilful obscurity. No band info, band photos, hell, no track-listing: it's clear that Seasons (pre-din) are intent on fucking with our brains.
This carries through with complete parity into the music. The eight tracks, which in total run for half an hour, bleed together to form one cavernous whole. This is ambient music at its darkest, rumbling around the bowels of the earth and skulking in the darker corners of the pits of hell. It begins with deep, dark rumbles and drones, sliced through with occasional shards of feedback and just beneath it all is an unintelligible chatter of voices speaking in a mystical language, or in tongues. Other incidentals, such as panicked voices and heavy, dolorous chimes, enter the frame as the soundtrack to Armageddon builds. It goes on in this way for nine and a half minutes. It's as scary as it is ace.
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Throughout the nightmarish auditory experience that is 'Stars and Lights: Together We Fall' there's considerable emphasis on low, rumbling bass frequencies: disquieting, unsettling fear notes (far too sparse and dissonant to be chords, that's for sure) cast shadows, long and heavy, building layers of darkness upon darkness with increasing volume and intensity. The grating, scraping, rumbling of earthworks and atomic winds are unrelenting. The effect is claustrophobic, suffocating: sonic torture, that drills into your brain and shows no mercy. Powerful stuff.
http://www.myspace.com/seasonspredin
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