A-Sun Amisa is a musical collective based in Manchester, U.K., founded by instrumentalist and songwriter Richard Knox. Since 2011 when the collective first formed, membership has been fluid, as has much of the approach to songwriting.
On Ceremony In The Stillness, A-Sun Amissa shoots for a ponderous approach to ambient metal, layering drone instrumentation and dense atmospheres with, for what is at baseline a metal recording, off-beat instrumentation. On “The Skulk,” which dwells on a blend of cosmic and labyrinthine ambience, a few piano lines wend their way into the mix, a welcome light to dark contrast. It’s not a deviation away from the album’s core dark atmosphere. Rather it feels like an enhancement of the album’s core conflict.
Often I’ve seen the word “unrelenting” used to describe the band’s sound on this record, but for me, it’s constantly yielding. It’s sublime in how, like water, the sound seems to welcome its conformity to space. Unrelenting is an almost meaningless metal adjective anyway, right? When the songs reach for their power source, like the doom metal riffs on “To The Ashes” or on “No Perception of Light,” throughout which the chords are dark and full of spidery ruin, those “heavy” elements of metal come to life. In those moments, A-Sun Amissa becomes powerful, unrelentingly powerful, perhaps, but those moments are rare enough that they hardly brand the sound.
The album is six tracks, ranging from near six minutes to nine and a half, but the cuts between them seem arbitrary. Most of the tracks fade in slowly and out even slower. On this record, A-Sun Amissa has assembled a musical atmosphere in six movements. The record is almost shapeless, which is a nice feeling. Some of my favorite passages come on “Remembrancer,” the album’s closer. On this track, A-Sun Amissa’s exploration of desolation, simmering beneath the surface throughout much of its 45-minute run time, arrives at a culmination. The guitars are clear and more explosive, and throughout the track there is also a feeling of surfacing, of a perpetual coming up for light.
At the end of the record, I’m left wanting nothing more than to see A-Sun Amissa live, somewhere not confined to a room, because the vistas on this record defy the idea of venue. Often I find heavy music and doom-influenced music thrives on aspects of confinement, but this is a nighttime record; it’s autumnal and a sprawling exploration of terra firma.
