Chaos Moon - Languor Into Echoes, Beyond
Convivial Hermit (not yet published): For a band that formed in only 2004, Chaos Moon have put together a fairly rewarding album with Languor Into Echoes, Beyond.  Released concurrently with a second recording, entitled Origin of Apparition (on Wraith Productions), Chaos Moon do not show any signs of being short on creative energy, and that same creative energy is evinced with confidence on these seven tracks.  The basic ingredients for black metal are all here, fast drums (here synthesized), harsh vocals, distorted, heavy guitars, yet enhanced with the addition of some courageous (in the context of the black metal "scene" which they support, at least) dark ambient parts.  All seven tracks tend to spin around central motifs or riffs, usually quite catchy, while drifting from the rule briefly with the previously mentioned dark ambiance or electronics.  Lovers of conventional black metal or people easily turned off by the Skinny Puppy-isms of modern Mayhem should not be bothered too much by too much experimentation or goofiness as Chaos Moon's approach to metal is not very experimental in the full blooded sense of the word.  However, their music is, probably to the jubilation of the band members, quite difficult to define at times.  Simulacrum of Mirrors, the track that comes in the middle of the album, is the best example.  This song, with its melodic leads, seems to have a bit of early, atmospheric death metal to it, but executed in a “black metal” way, if you know what I mean: in other words, conveyed through harsh, high pitch vocals, trebly guitars, blast drumming, and - in a break from tradition - loudly audible bass guitar parts.  Here everything goes as expected up until the six-minute mark when there is a sudden transition into an atmospheric sample of a man and woman talking to each other, their discussion muted and difficult to understand as it is buried in deep reverb and drone effects... something about feeling a girl that is not there, someone going to the bathroom... in all honesty, I cannot make too much sense out of it!  And then, once a few minutes pass, the metal and aggression rages on as though the haunting passage never occurred.  This, the most unusual part of the album, is difficult to demystify with no lyrics and only a very sketchy history of the band, but is interesting and almost novel in a way.  Thereafter the album goes back into its mode of blasting aggression with only a few select interruptions with slower passages, such as the melodic interlude in The Palterer, and the epic, Hymn of Iniquity.  No doubt Chaos Moon have ambitious ideas with this album, ideas that transcend, when they want to, the common clichés of the genre, and I would have never guessed that the band originates from a redneck state like Tennessee.  However, when all is said and done, I cannot help feeling that the band could be doing much more, that the band is possibly hampered in some way by certain expectations and stereotypes of what it "should" sound like.  I could very well be wrong about this but that is my feeling with repeated listens.  All in all a very decent recording, interesting, powerful in moments, and certainly adventurous as the need demands it.

Invisible Oranges: The artwork of Chaos Moon's Languor into Echoes, Beyond (Ars Magna, 2007) hints at what's inside. Replacing the usual illegible gothic fonts are curvy, flowery letters that sketch out phrases ("the waning of life and night," "I saw the aging life of me") instead of complete lyrics. The black and white images have a dreamy, hazy Photoshop effect. Not typical black metal accoutrements, but they fit the music perfectly. This is the most romantic black metal I've ever heard.
"Romantic" and "black metal" aren't as bad a match as you'd think. I'm using "romantic" to connote "swooning and dramatic" as opposed to notions of love or whatnot. Xasthur's sound is so lush that it seems romantic to me. Of course, its discordance skews the romance, like a 4AD record with cancer. But the swooning and drama are there. Xasthur's "misanthropy" is so over-the-top that it's no longer solipsism - it's outreach. Opposites are often similar; much Satanic black metal seems almost Christian in its fundamentalist insularity and use of Latin and other Christian trappings. Ergo, the quasi-religious feel of, say, Mortuus or Deathspell Omega.
Without lyrics, I can't tell what Chaos Moon are howling about. But this two-man outfit from Nashville (!) presents interesting contrasts - scathing vocals vs. ethereal keyboards, black metal vs. ambient music. Sure, the latter are common bedmates nowadays, but Chaos Moon don't shade them together like everyone else. They paint with bold colors and slather them atop each other with big strokes.
But this isn't Dimmu Borgir. The dialogue (or monologue, as the case may be) is mostly intimate and personal. The first half of the album is raucous - blastbeats, tremolo picking, the whole routine. But out of nowhere in the middle, an eight minute ambient interlude drops. If it's just a keyboard preset, it's a gorgeous one ("Badalamenti 3"?), morphing through haunting chords and textures.
At this point, the album rockets from "OK" to "awesome."
I'm normally not a fan of keyboards, but Chaos Moon use them to shoegazer effect much like how Wolves in the Throne Room do nowadays. Check out the delicate clean tones that wander into, then engulf "The Palterer" - they're like the second coming of Cocteau Twins. Then billowy keys flow over the top, and we're in slow dance land. Amazing. When "Hymn to Iniquity" goes shoegazer at 1:15, one can almost picture the Jesu colored vinyl. Actually, we (and Jesu) are now at the point where black metal is heavier - yet lighter. And the closing 12:38 behemoth? M83 gone black metal. Immense.

Noktorn: I thought that the other side of Chaos Moon’s two-album simultaneous release, ‘Origin Of Apparition’, was kind of cool, but somewhat inconsistent and partially crippled by its (intentionally, apparently) ultra-coarse production job. ‘Languor Into Echoes, Beyond’, though, seems to be more my style; it’s blessed with a considerably clearer sound, a seemingly more focused songwriting style, and just a general compositional feel that, while more typically black metal than the other LP, works more for me in particular. I suppose that maybe Chaos Moon does better when working with somewhat more traditional, scaled-back compositions, but then again, it’s probably just be a matter of taste.
I guess the strange thing is that what Chaos Moon does on this album really isn’t any different from what they do on ‘Origin Of Apparition’; it’s just presented differently. The more conventional production job is an unbelievably big boost to the quality of the album overall, with the undistorted drum machine allowing a much more audible perception of the riffing and vocals. The former are better defined; less violently atonal and discordant than those on ‘Origin Of Apparition’, the presence of conventional melody in them seems to draw out Chaos Moon’s themes better than on the other release. The vocals also seem better, with, again, less distortion, and a greater variation in their presentation. The structure of this album is fairly similar to that of the other, mixing it up between blasting black metal, slower sections, and keyboard-driven ambient interludes, but this time, the former have become more cohesive, the middle more interesting, and the latter more deftly placed within the album as a whole. The interplay between all those sections is what makes ‘Languor Into Echoes, Beyond’ a really solid album; tracks like ‘Simulacrum Of Mirrors’, which take their time to unfold and employ all the different styles Chaos Moon is known for in a single track.
One might also think that this album benefits from not being broken up quite as much as the other, despite its substantially longer running time. This album’s seven tracks compared to the other’s nine are longer and seemingly more developed, so the general flow of the release seems more even-handed than that of ‘Origin Of Apparition’. To stop describing ‘Languor Into Echoes, Beyond’ in terms of its sister album, I suppose the general sound on this release can be compared to other stalwart members of the USBM scene, ranging from the more dissonant artists like Absonus Noctis to the depressive scene we all know and sometimes love, but Chaos Moon’s style is still somewhat different from those, with a more varied aesthetic and overall grasp of presentation. While many other releases in the USBM scene tend to feel like drawn-out demos, there’s no doubt that a great deal of thought has been put into both of Chaos Moon’s albums, even though I may find one superior to another.
A lot of my complaints about ‘Origin Of Echoes’ were, even moreso than normal in the course of a music review, a matter of personal taste. I get the general concept of these two albums; ‘Languor Into Echoes, Beyond’ is clearly supposed to be the more conventional and melodic of the two, while ‘Origin Of Apparition’ is designed specifically to be an abrasive assault on the senses via savage atonality and choppy presentation. But taste is taste, and the Ars Magna side of Chaos Moon does seem to be more up my alley insofar as presentation goes. I’d encourage most fans of the underground black metal scene to give both a try, as the experience of each album does greatly benefit from conjunction with the other. This one speaks to me a fair bit more than the other, but your experience with it will almost certainly vary. Either way, it’s worth your time to have such an experience in the first place, as Chaos Moon does have something new and interesting to offer the black metal listener.

Grave Concerns Ezine: Chaos Moon is the black metal project of one man from Tennessee that goes by the name of Esoterica. "Languor into Echoes, Beyond" is one of two albums released by Chaos Moon this year. This one was released on Ars Magna Recordings as a counter album of sorts to the second album, "Origin of Apparition" out on Wraith Productions. "Languor into Echoes, Beyond" is a two part album. From the opening of "De Mortalitate" until about the 2:50 mark on "The Palterer" you have raw black metal filled with blast beats, hyper speed picking and Esoterica's howling screams. After you hit that mark there is a different beast all together contained within this album. You are hit with ambient keyboard melodies that up until that point were only in the background. Esoterica brings them right out into the open on "The Palterer" and uses them to create an atmosphere made up of equal parts beauty and ugliness. "Hymn To Iniquity" and the 12 minute "Countless Reverie In Mare" shows him blending these two alternate paths perfectly to create a really well done release. I'm not so much of a fan of the ambient black metal, preferring more of a raw style similar to the first half of the album but the way Esoterica has put this together works really well. With more listens I have found this album to be highly enjoyable and an excellent mix of the old and the new in the black metal world. Definitely get a copy of this album!