Beats and yelling: Midnight Odyssey

Closer to the Sky
Out 4^th June on I, Voidhanger

Following the epic, bloated, unfocused, but nevertheless praiseworthy Biolume trilogy, itself creaking under the weight of nearly five hours of music across three albums, hitting the reset button seems like the only sane thing for Midnight Odyssey to do at this point. A modest half hour EP of explicitly black metal oriented music seems like a fitting way to achieve this. Whilst Biolume saw this project take in ambient, black metal, heavy metal, all stripes of doom from funeral to epic, electronica, and almost everything in between, ‘Closer to the Sky’ takes Midnight Odyssey back to their roots with understated black metal on the borders of symphonic and atmospheric.

Hearing that an artist is “returning to their roots” is often cause for concern, usually signalling defeatism in the face of the hard graft of genuine creativity by reverting to the behaviour of an idle hobbyist. But given the reckless scope Midnight Odyssey attempted to cover on the Biolume trilogy, not to mention a three part ambient experiment running concurrently to this, an exception can be made in this case for Dis Pater hitting the reset button. He is an artist that has always strained credulity with the sheer volume of material he puts out in one hit, and has recently been attempting to justify this with a broader range of emotions, themes, and techniques. But the umbrella sitting above such eclecticism remains a form of linear, unapologetically bright atmospheric black metal.

Heavy metal remnants remain across the material on ‘Closer to the Sky’, despite the opening statement of ‘Souls Left Wandering’ which is clearly intended to bring us back to that intoxicating mysticism of early Emperor. Bouncy heavy metal riffs make an appearance on ‘Lightning Fall’, alongside the gothic rock hew which opens the title track. For this and many reasons besides, talk of a complete retcon following Biolume is perhaps a little premature.

There is a clear attempt to limit the scope, invite some modesty and focus into the writing process, and compose with listener retention in mind. But the continuity in the onward trajectory of this project is clear. Dis Pater remains worthy of attention precisely because he is able to bind such a breadth of colours into his music whilst retaining an instantly recognisable style. The diverse genres he leverages are obvious in the music, as is the contrast between dark and light, distorted and clean. But unlike many contemporaries experimenting with diversity as an artform in itself, Midnight Odyssey’s work always feels whole, complete, intentional, and coherent, if one is willing to put the time and attention in required to get something from these undeniably bulky offerings.

The carefully managed production, another hallmark of this project from its inception, certainly does a lot of heavy lifting, but it does not fully explain why this material never fails to evoke vastness. His willingness to engage with traditional Christian forms on their own terms (as opposed to the intentionally “evil” bastardisations that litter most of metal) adds a sense of gravitas and size to the ambience of this project that goes beyond the qualities inherent in the synth patches themselves.

There is a clear attempt to exercise some parsimony on ‘Closer to the Sky’, and the benefits are obvious. Some may be wont to locate the goth-cum-neofolk lyricism of the title track on the wrong side of twee, but there’s no denying the intelligence and love of the composition, and the clear contrast it offers as a listening experience to the weighty tomes of the full length material. The same goes for the dark symphonics of ‘Souls Left Wandering’, which hits me as some of the most competent symphonic black metal I’ve heard for some time. The light ambience of atmospheric closer ‘Awakening’ clearly contains some Summoning DNA, crossed with the impenitent tragedian spirit of old school darkwave.

In short, this EP, which is still a serviceable album’s worth of material, feels like a whistlestop tour of a Midnight Odyssey album, the TLDR we genuinely needed, offering up highlights, cutting away the long stretches of dirgey chaff, and bringing to the surface the genuine talent and understanding of ambient and black metal sitting behind this project, previously too often submerged beneath an excess of material.