Somnium Nox
Apocrypha

Internet is truly a wonderful place. You can find everything there. Really everything. And in this vast ocean, one of my favorite spots is a small, great island called Bandcamp: this is a magical place, the crossroads of music, mainly underground, where great bands, mediocre bands, and poor bands completely surround you, to the point where you don't know what to listen to, so much is the merchandise offered.
One day, like many others, not knowing what to do and having decided to look for some group unknown to most, I search for "post-black metal" on the aforementioned site and stumble upon this group with a particularly intriguing name (at least for me) Somnium Nox and this work, with an equally interesting title, Apocrypha, whose cover is extremely impactful. Believing it to be an entire album, I click on it enthusiastically. But I notice, between disappointment and curiosity, that it is actually a single track lasting 16 minutes and 13 seconds. I hit the play button.

The first seconds are very intriguing, with an almost ambient soundscape and some notes of an instrument that, at first listen, I didn't quite recognize, but later discovered to be a didgeridoo (Somnium Nox is Australian). "How awesome," I think to myself. The bass and drums are added. The dark atmosphere that is created is exactly what I was looking for...
The real song begins. Drum machine with an incredibly fast double bass drum, distorted guitar by the multi-instrumentalist Nocturnal (who also handled the drum machine programming), scream by the singer Ashahalasin. I look around carefully and shake my head: "No, my head is not in a fishbowl." Because this is exactly the sensation you get: the sound is extremely muffled and mixed, to use "a pale and polite euphemism" (as my beloved Philosophy professor used to say), not in the best way. Every sound seems miles and miles away, even if you listen to this work with headphones well planted in your ears. Everything is distant. Very distant. Too distant. Maybe someone likes all this, even judging by the comments below the song, but as far as I'm concerned, it makes the work poor, bordering on unlistenable. Be aware, the lack of sound quality in Apocrypha cannot absolutely be defined as a homage to the sound of original black metal, because the works of various Darkthrone, Burzum, and Ulver (the first three among the most unknown names that come to mind) were raw, edgy, sharp. This is muffled, as if you were really listening to music coming from a stereo placed in the living room while your head is underwater in the bathroom. The only excuse I can find is that it is an absolutely independent production. But that doesn't change the fact that it is really difficult to listen to it.
My rating would be 2.5, but since there are no half ratings, I give it a 3, because the raw material is there and it’s valid... it’s the treatment that leaves much to be desired...