The mysterious Stigmatheist returns with his project Ego Depths four years after his debut, with this disturbing and monolithic Gjerhal Ket Bardo. The Ukrainian musician, but now permanently stationed in Canada, offers his funeral with experimental traits that obviously goes to the fringe of less immediate enjoyment of the genre. It must be said, to be fair, that Ego Depths is not synonymous with the abuse of ambient or drone atmospheres; in fact, the sound consists mostly of an authentic wall of incommunicability, made up of riffs through which faint melodic hints creep in, often led by a particularly excruciating-sounding lead guitar. The vocals are (perhaps too much) in the background compared to the rest of the sounds, a pity in some respects, although the alienating effect is assured; in fact, Gjerhal Ket Bardo is the classic work that, if listened to without the right predisposition and above all the necessary patience, at first approaches brutally repels unless it then shows itself, as the passages in the player follow one another, to be a true monument to suffering. Of the five tracks on the disc, one is a short acoustic instrumental while the other four sonic monoliths travel on an average of a quarter of an hour each, authentic tests of endurance to which the listener is subjected, annihilated by claustrophobic passages, but equally rich in a magnetic charm, capable of irresistibly attracting after the first moments of initial repulsion. The work flows between asphyxiating atmospheres, occasionally interrupted by moments of apparent calm, in which unexpected harmonies also peep out (in the central part of Unmasker Of The Absurd I could swear I recognized an aria from Jesus Christ Superstar, albeit partially transfigured ), useful to break the tension only temporarily before it re-explodes in a song with apocalyptic traits such as My Hearse Immortal, dissolves again in the short This Still to reach a worthy conclusion with the magnificent …Into The Empty Maw Of Universe, a track in some ways more conventional in which the experimental soul coexists with moments of considerable emotional charge. At the antipodes of the most melodic funeral, Gjerhal Ket Bardo proves to be a work capable of effectively sketching anger and demotivation in human beings, as well as the genre dictates.

2013 – Independent 2014 – Wulfrune Worxxx