Hailing from the spiritual home of metal and initially starting as an anonymous one-man black metal project, Birmingham based frontman known only as No One has been cultivating a signature sound for a number of years now. Debuting in 2019 with the aptly named DEMO 1, The Sun’s Journey Through The Night quickly gained an audience for their (self-described) “raw, chaotic and cathartic” black metal, thematically exploring personal traumas through narratives that take inspiration from “creation, death, the universe and life beyond humanity”.
With the aspiration of evolving from just a studio project after releasing three full length studio albums between 2020-2021, No One recruited a full live band to showcase the material. Finding the chemistry between all parties so strong in a live environment, this led Lune, Deimos and Corvus joining the band full time to contribute to new album Worldless, arguably the band’s most accomplished work to date.
Opening track ‘Abolishing Consciousness’ sets the stage perfectly. Beginning with multi-layered guitars saturated in reverb, chiming in the distant expanse before walls of oppressive distortion make themselves known like a gut punch. Churning back to the remote post-rock ambience briefly before finally unleashing into raw black metal fury with one hell of a main hook. The turbulent textural shifts continue, not only throughout ‘Abolishing Consciousness’, but across Worldless as a whole.
“Balancing the traditional black metal vocal style with significantly more emotive output, at times the vocalist’s pain feels all too real, almost agonisingly so. ”
The title track opens with post-metal riffs that are very reminiscent of Russian Circles and Amenra (if they were a little faster), before No One’s vocals stir up the blast beats to come. The track has a heavy groove that permeates the black metal theatrics, even featuring a tasty little guitar solo for good measure. As the track winds down, so do the band, continuing to repeat the main riff only getting slower and heavier each time before deteriorating and fading out.
There are a variety of explorative moments across the six-tracks and thirty-nine minute run time, bolstering the power of the black metal passages by allowing room to breathe around them. ‘Void Walker’ takes great advantage of this, with synth layers building ambience and an acoustic lead introduction with a haunting, almost primal, vocal passage that sits somewhere between spoken word and softly sung. It patiently builds anticipation for around two minutes, letting the ambience fade before dramatically returning in intense fashion, replicating the acoustic chord patterns through tremolo guitar work.
All the expected hallmarks of black metal are present, relentless tremolo riffs on the guitars and bass, cataclysmic blast beats and double kick on the drums (with some absolutely ludicrous fills thrown in for good measure) and No One’s piercing howls. The lyrical themes channeling No One’s personal traumas are presented phenomenally through their vocal performance. Balancing the traditional black metal vocal style with significantly more emotive output, at times the vocalist’s pain feels all too real, almost agonisingly so.
“One of the more unique black metal releases of the year”
‘Grief, The Star’ acts as an instrumental interlude and a reprieve from the fury, if only briefly. Using electronics and samples to build capacious atmospheres that swell and grow, tension weaved throughout the instrumentals as a highly filtered spoken word passage lingers just below the surface, feeling like a lost transmission emanating from the depths of the void. It seamlessly flows into “Flood Of Flames”, piano notes gently ring out in the distance as post-rock melodies accompany the underlying synthesis as the band blend monolithic riffs with their black metal aggression, yet still it closes with an unsettling ambience of gentle post-rock melodies.
The closing track ‘Orion’ is arguably the most intense track on the album and a fitting thematic and emotional climax. The band really pull together an excellent amalgamation of the textures explored across the album, the relentless emotion heavy black metal core taking centre stage at the start. At around the two-minute mark the beat breaks, leaving just a simple drum beat, one guitar and vocals before they themselves fade away into ambient guitars and electronics. This gives way to a stunning programmed orchestral passage dominating the middle of the track as the ambient guitars and electronics support the epic orchestral melodies building to a crescendo, reaching the emotional and instrumental zenith as the album fades away.
At times hypnotic and expansive, at others claustrophobic and haunting, The Sun’s Journey Through The Night continue to carve away a space for themselves within not only the UK, but the wider black metal scene. The wider influences drawn in and the exploration of varied soundscapes make for one of the more unique black metal releases of the year and a milestone of the growth and maturation within the UK scene.