Release Date: 8 May 2020

1.Leave The Winter On the Ground/2. Paint The Stars Tonight/3. Pretty Something, Never Was/4. Capulet Loves Montague/5. Gloomy Witch/6.Disease of The Divine/7. Dearly Beloved/8. Gloomy Witch (Düstere Hexe) Twin Tribes remix/9. Dearly Beloved Wisborg remix

Label: Negative Gain Productions

Where has this album found you? What is tormenting you? What frightens you? Have you accepted your Astari Nite coverillusions and fantasies with grace? Are you deep inside a dark place or on the outside looking in? ‘Here Lies‘, the new album by inspirational band Astari Nite, comes to soothe an intense pain so that it does not turn into self-hatred and bitterness. The nest that is depicted on the album’s cover is the first and most important clue to this change of atmosphere, while the poetic song titles offer glimpses of an emotionally mature and spiritually deeper approach into matters of the heart and mind.


The dirt sucks the soul til it’s empty…’(lyrics:”Paint The Stars Tonight“)

Coming two years after ‘Midnight Conversations’, this album has a completely different energy altogether. Astari Nite had been gracefully preparing us for it, with the release of two singles in the meantime, so when the full length album reached us last month, it came as a long-awaited friend. The album is less darkwave in terms of its rhythms, gothic in its subjects and sonic aesthetics and evidently occult in its visual references. The sonic potion that has been prepared for us, has summoning percussion rhythms, enlightened by ritualistic high-pitched bell noises and electrifying guitar riffs. Mychael’s Bowie-flavoured melodic vocals and dark post-punk bass riffs paint pictures of emotional gloom and violence with lyrics as sharp as knives.

Shatter my heart, I know that you want to…’(lyrics:”Leave The Winter On The Ground)

A gothic love game is a serious and ‘dangerous’ thing to engage in and Astari Nite sure know a thing or two about all the pain involved in it, the things the teasing will be ‘challenging’ and all the possible outcomes. ‘Pretty Something,Never Was‘, ‘Gloomy Witch‘, reveal the summoning qualities of Mychael’s vocals while the melodies deepen the impact of the lyrics that worship the inevitability and attraction of loss. ‘Disease of The Divine‘ is all about embracing the darkness of illusions, experiencing their bitterness to their totality and hope that catharsis is the end of this gothic opera. Piano notes, subtle percussion sounds and strategically placed electric guitar riffs are illuminating the sonic and emotional gloom this time.

I can stitch you like a doll I had, that fell apart. Join me in the dark…’(lyrics:’Capulet Loves Montague‘)

Dearly Beloved‘ refers to the ‘high’ part of the gloomy ride and does more than just uplift the sonic energy of the whole album; it purifies it by placing it at the highest point of the emotional procession. The song’s rhythms, less heavy than those of all the other songs in the album, glorify the moment of a romantic spark, tempt us to dance to them, honouring just the fact that this moment manifested itself.

You left me lonely pictures/Only of You and Me/Hours of guilt and decay/Sadly, now it’s frightful…’ (lyrics:’Gloomy Witch‘)


The album concludes with two remixes of ‘Gloomy Witch‘ by Twin Tribes and ‘Dearly Beloved‘ by Wisborg. Both infuse darkwave aromas into the original versions of the songs. While ‘Twin Tribes’ have somehow diluted the melody within ‘Gloomy Witch’ and brought the synth’s vibrations to the foreground, Wisborg, have taken ‘Dearly Beloved’ out of the realm of a light goth dance and into the atmosphere of a dark summoning.

This album will not pick you up from anywhere. It is a gothic album, not just aesthetically but in very real, dark ways. It is there as a sonic potion to pour over your own self-inflicted spiritual and emotional wounds in order to soothe your most tormenting thoughts. ‘Here Lies’ is the most melodic album of the band so far and one of its most personal ones. If you agree that ‘Leave The Winter On The Ground‘ reveal some influences from the sonic aesthetics of Pink Turns Blue, ‘Pretty Something, Never Was‘ nods discreetly to the rhythms of Sisters of Mercy while the synth in ‘Gloomy Witch’ brings your mind to the synthesizers in Trisomie 21’s songs, then I think that the band would be pleased. The production of this album, is commendable as all the songs have enviable sonic depth and no sound has been masked, no matter how brief and in what frequency. One video has been released so far for ‘Capulet Loves Montague‘ inspired vaguely by the history of Romeo&Juliet and another one is in the making after the band’s fans voted for ‘Leave The Winter On The Ground‘ to be given a visual form.

Thought you would wake me, I was teasing you…’ (lyrics:’Paint The Stars Tonight‘)

‘Here Lies’ will be presented live to us, sooner rather than later, despite the fact that so far, gigs are not happening anywhere in the world, but until then, if you wonder whether you can handle all that is involved in a real gothic love story, then the songs of this album will leave no stone unturned for you. Nine sonic letters about fantasies that momentarily appear as real and achievable stories or as the band has describe it: ” “Here Lies” is a peculiar set of songs that professes one’s views on the curiosity of magick and theories of love sworn to secrecy…”  Enjoy their magic!

 

8/10

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