Last year’s Visions, the third full-length from Anomalie, was a revelation. The conceptual piece with every song a chapter of a story was ambitious, grandiose, and exceedingly epic, yet it still managed to avoid hyper-pretension despite lofty goals, mainly because it was all done so stunningly well.
Integra is not a follow-up, but rather a stopgap EP for the project which is essentially a vehicle for Chris Marrok. Given the similar sound to the previous album, it’s possible that the four songs have been around for a while but did not fit into the concept; maybe they don’t seem like they will work on whatever he has planned for the next full-length, either.
The extra-textural soundscapes the band dabbled in are still evident, though more subdued. The morose piano which appears at the conclusion of “Rebirth” like a requiem at a funeral, the clean guitar interlude of “Temples,” and the chanted canticle that forlornly finishes “Deliverance,” the last song on the release, all provide atmospheric contrast to Marrok’s emotionally screamed vocals and extremely precise drumming by Lukas Schlintl. Instead of one long story, here is a quartet of ethereal tracks, each one telling a separate, triumphant tale.
Anomalie, whether in the smaller dose here or on sprawling, full albums, conjure up the same beautiful, overwrought textures of Alcest. However unlike the French pioneers as of late, Marrok does so while continuing to embrace shimmering, black metal dissonance. Those who enjoy the likes of Alcest and Agalloch but wish they didn’t forsake their metallic roots will love Anomalie for providing the best of all worlds.
