Another album finding its way in the 'Repeat' section for me is the Ides Of Gemini debut full length 'Constantinople'. Another album that has caught me by surprise like so many others this year. An almost ritualistic like journey through lands so bleak and tragic and smothered in icy mist.
The big key for me that makes this album so good is the riffs first and foremost. It isn't anything complicated, I'm sure that is not what they are trying to do. They are simple but gosh, they couldn't be anymore effective. That guitar's distorted tone is so bleak as well and the way they slowly creep along. Oddly enough, it can feel calming but the tone presents an eerie unpleasantness. It even feels heavier than it is trying to be. Melodies in songs like 'Resurrectionists', 'One To Oneness' and 'Reaping Golden' are like quick stints of repetition that adds a hypnotic side. If those walls of bleak distortion on songs like 'The Vessel & The Stake' and 'Starless Midnight' are not mesmerizing enough. Even the cleaner moments (Eg: 'Austrian Windows') show the eerie side.
Sera Timms vocals do the same. Where as they take that calm side I am familiar with on Black Math Horseman, she has some moments where she has complete power and force. Here, it is not about hitting a note, but the passion and the emotion when she lifts her voice. Like the riffs, the effectiveness in her deep tone. A soothing voice that lifts to the highest peak and can simply leap and carry over and through the icy mist smothering the bleak lands. Just listen to the chorus in 'Starless Midnight'. Her voice soars and commands. There is even this chilling effect to them and when she is backed up, it only drives the feeling more.
Even the drumming doesn't do anything out of the ordinary but again is effectively done. The way they plod along in 'The Vessel & The Stake' for example. It feels ritualistic to me. A march to remember a tragic event. Perhaps the icy mist smothering the land is slowly fading away to reveal the torn remains of a war that should never of happened. The entrancing snaps of the snare in 'Slain In Spirit' or the crashing in 'One To Oneness' may describe the vision more.
With all the simple effectiveness going on, the thing that is difficult to depict in all this is where do you put this in terms of style? Well, thanks to everything I have described in the above, I really couldn't place this anywhere. It is not that I really care cause it is if I like the music or not. But interested ones do care. I guess it is suited more to the doom or stoner ear, but that is only taking the easy way out. It is a rock album more than anything else but too bleak to be truly grasped by a mainstream audience. An awesome one at that.
It is easy to realize the talent in some ridiculously complicated music. But sometimes the feel and the atmosphere is lacking to truly absorb it and go back to it. The same can be said for a lot of the simpler music too. It is a big thing I look for at least in the music I like. With Ides Of Gemini, they have backed it up with the atmosphere, with the passion and with the soul. The way I have taken this album in.. One of the finest albums I have heard this year.
Ikil
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