Panopticon is an eco-friendly one-man black metal band, essentially Kentucky’s answer to Wolves in the Throne Room. This album combines two previous split releases. Musically, they bear a striking resemblance to Pacific Northwest bands (see also: Agalloch) in that there are intricate, often gorgeous and melancholy harmonies hidden beneath the disorienting blur of fast drums and screeching vocals. But rather than relying on drifting post-rock crescendos to create their cold atmospheric sound, Panopticon forgoes all the subtleties and assaults your ears with bleak, wintry black metal, and the contrast with the neo-folk sections is more jarring (though it works). Brings to mind Norwegian blizzard bands such as Taake, Windir, and early Ulver as much as Agalloch. Existential, transcendental, top-notch American black metal.
FCC Clean. 2x12” 45rpm

Side A
1. (11:34) Brief sampled intro of operatic film score. Then a dense, blizzard-y progression of riffs ranging from reverbed jazzy parts and breakneck-speed black metal. Spoken interlude with folksy guitar; soothing piano outro.

Side B
1. (7:33) Harsh rapidfire black metal with a thoughtful, harmonic flow of ideas, like Taake at their finest. Pensive folky interlude on this one too, but the drums don’t stop.
2. (6:31) INSTRUMENTAL. Starts out lush and dreamy; eventually, the distortion pedal comes on, and layers of guitar add pretty, Agalloch-esque harmonies. Somber plodding, drags on slowly, with some spoken German sample. Great dynamics in the drums.

Side C
1. (7:06) Sampled intro of some church choir (I think). Two minutes in, some AWESOME lightspeed snowstorm black metal starts, some of the fastest riffs on the album. Though the tempo remains somewhat the same, folk instruments slowly join in at the end. Ambient fade-out.
2. (8:08) Slow synth, guitar ambience with some weird beats drifts around, halfway through the epic, mid-paced steady black metal finally begins and doesn’t let up.

Side D
1. (9:14) superfuckingfast drums, the cymbals almost drowning out the intricate thrashy riffs; then some lush interludes with cello, bells and droning; then back to the black metal—you get the idea. Ends with a sample from some movie—chirping birds, a babbling baby, some weird foreign language.