The paranormal is interwoven deeply among the fabric of our existence, and HAUNTOLOGIST has pursued a new profession around this field, with Hollow recorded as their debut study of its material. Here they’ve joined methods focused on black metal with post-rock elements and other atmospheric notes to conjure urban varieties of the otherworldly, where sprawling concrete labyrinths prove ideal for the dark specters wandering within, and the mind is also clearly afflicted by these influences as its course takes effect. Intricate layers of ruin are further complicated across the stylistic shifts throughout, demonstrating an innovative force gathered behind this Polish duo, and it composes a downcast gaze on Hollow that aims straight into the depths of psychosis.
The bleakness creeps in around a vast aural complex on “Ozymandian,” with dreary and incorporeal shades converging over the madness, and their synchronicities reflect a structural potency that intensifies when joined to heavier rhythms. These traverse areas of alluring percussive flow, and Darkside’s trademark cymbalcraft notably enhances the course, where distress is apparent in the descent of certain melodic tones. A tremolo lead compounds these intricacies with its dismal energy, and atmosphere is even more pronounced when ambient haunts manifest subtly among the distortions. The despair sets in further during “Golem,” which proceeds solemnly with a cold trance induced by its clear arpeggiated notes, and riffs expand with a trudging dissonance before other shadows are carried across points of blasting devastation. This bipolar spectrum progressing through slowed misery and oppressive frenzy demonstrates another stylistic quality, and “Waves of Concrete” echoes the mental toll with urban atmospheric impressions of torment, including static and sampled transmissions to heighten the despondency within. A comparatively upbeat grooving character emerges on “Deathdreamer,” but its melodies and crushing riff strikes retain a dark undercurrent, and it persists amid clean-stringed doses that become embedded in the burden to reach a moment of elevated trauma.
A Negative versatility is further actualized on “Hollow,” where harshness is stripped back to highlight clear spirits with a desolate and tranced-out distinction, and this stylistic shift is matched in vocals deviating from brutality to incorporate sung techniques. Crowded streets are envisioned at a point with faint atmospheric commotion, and there is something majestic to the gloom as cold and rugged elements gradually take hold. The scope of these blurred genre lines aptly marks a title track while blackness resurges intensely on “Autotomy,” and this is mainly achieved through shades of despair brooding in the riffs, along with drums compounding that tone steadily across beats laced with intricate fills. A storm of blasts and tremolo leads is unleashed contemptuously amid grim vocal revelations, and “Gardermoen” follows with a return to alternative sonic influences, which carry a distinct sense of traversing barren realms in its rapidly strummed and mid-paced percussive grooves. The vocals and melodic traces also drive a growing delirium, and the overall progression of this work from its extreme tracks and into a more post-rocking backend especially reflects being consumed by torments. This counterintuitive format, with its metal areas possibly representing sanity by comparison, makes for an interesting course that ultimately leads to “Car Kruków.” An isolated effect is created when its fretted shapes proceed without any drumming, and horns resound with other features like bad hallucinations around the monologue delivered by a female speaker. I’m not able to understand what she says, but distress is hauntingly evident in her voice at the final moment of departure.
Many levels of dread are parallelled on the lyrical side, with malign spirits on “Ozymandian” directing an initial fall from grandeur, and “Utopias dreamt while sleeping in the open grave” aptly conveys the true nature of its reality. This delusive joining of idealized visions with a deathly existence leads to other torments, including those “Oppressed by painful doubts, tentacles and rats,” and that misery is matched when one on “Golem” is “Self-cursed to sail a barely breathing wreckage through the sea of ruins and ash.” The structures of different buildings are evoked with features likening the city to a live creature, but some details and the descriptor of “A corpse that breathes” show it is clearly rotting, and its “Desolated signposts leading to the very center of formlessness” draw toward an inner emptiness where the drudgery of a “Mesmerized parade goes onwards.” Connections between urban regions and existential states are noted in the “Derelict, remote outskirts of being” on “Deathdreamer,” and inescapable night terrors issue from its “Library of intrusive thoughts,” which breed an all-consuming darkness that becomes fully immersed.
Architectural forms are highlighted again when “Breeding windows into chessboards” on the title track, and the enslaving factor of mundane life seems addressed in “Does workday die with dusk? Or just the future plans die with dawn?” The otherworldliness of this environment rises as “Soul failures” are taken by an “Angelwinged ambulance,” and the existence of incorporeal beings is confirmed explicitly, along with a void in ourselves and the world. This nihilistic tone leads into “Autotomy,” where an intriguing contemplation on isolation and pestilence is found in “It is not contagious, in the lazaret for one,” and lines like “It is not bad news, if it’s not news at all” bring to mind other miserable things we’ve learned to accept as normal in our modern society. Self-dismemberment of the Infinite is witnessed around the “Light of pleroma,” and the observer also faces imminent demise, but first drifts lost through “Gardermoen.” Post-apocalyptic currents are enhanced among its “A-bomb, cold soul” and some different cities are mentioned, though I’m unsure of their underlying significance here. “Car Kruków” tells a story involving dark recurrent dreams haunted by ravens and ghosts, and death is the key required to escape for an end this dreamer isn’t ready to accept. The mystery runs deep within these verses, and they successfully elevate the urban and paranormal atmosphere conjured musically.
A deep psychological imprint is left from this introduction to HAUNTOLOGIST, a name befitting the ghostly traces embedded within its compositions, and a highly evocative craft is exhibited across gloomy dimensions paved in oppressive and intricate designs. These are driven further when combined with notable drumming and various aural qualities, and their blackness holds relentlessly while venturing into areas outside metal, which takes the journey in unanticipated directions like a mind spiraling through madness within an equally demented world. Hollow instantly captured awareness upon manifestation and forges an identity whose evolution will be interesting to witness, and its atmosphere should easily resonate with those open to arts integrating different forms of darkness.
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