Underground Sounds: Summit – The Winds That Forestall Thy Return

Label: I, Voidhanger Records
Band: Summit
Origin: Italy

Metal can be a weird thing, which is definitely what these Italians are delivering on their debut album. It looks and feels like an ambient or electronic record, but it really has some harrowing passages and pounding sections that prove differently. It’s out for you to listen now and definitely for the more experienced ear a lust to witness.

Gabriele Gramaglia is the sole bandmember of Summit. His other project is the more bleak and heavy The Clearing Path, which plays more of an introverted, grim black metal. On this album he does everything by himself, offering something that he describes as progressive sludge that paints vistas of mountains and valleys, creating an overall overwhelming feel. There’s definitely something picturesque about the sound of Summit.

A sense of foreboding looms over the opening tones of ‘Hymn of the Forlorn Wayfarer’, which jangling guitars and a continuous pulsing build up by the rhythm section. It somehow disconnects you from reality and allows you to dream and imagine, but also pummels you relentlessly here and there. The artwork is also significantly different and evokes a more trancendental imagery.

Now, there’s something particular to the sound of the band, that really puts them in that post-metal corner of a Pelican. The languid passages more or less feel very postrocky, even bringing up a bit of Godspeed! You Black Emperor in their early days, like on ‘The Winds That Forestall Thy Return, Pt. I: A Gleaming Aurora In The Northern Skies’ (yeah, quite the title). Onwards then goes the album with gritty sludge, that is a bit like Neurosis for sure, but there’s more strangeness to offer.

‘Aeons Pass, Memories Don’t Fade’ is a repetitive ambient track, that may sound similar to the Burzum prison albums. Reverberating synthesizer tones, with drums on the background. It is a sound exemplary for the whole album, which features a a production that feels blunted in a sense, lacking the sharp edges. It’s so produced that it feels like an overall ambient-like album. It does truly help with that cosmic, cinematic feel as described by the bio, by stripping the sound from its earthy connotations. I think it’s a great record.

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