Artist: Devils Looking Glass
Album: Treacherous Autumnal Wisdom
Label: Moonlight Cypress Archetypes
Release Date: 11/19/2021
Country: United States
The unstoppable force that is Ryan Clackner returns with another tasty offering of experimental genre defying music in the form of his latest project
Devils Looking Glass. The project just released its debut album Treacherous Autumnal Wisdom on November 19th on Moonlight Cypress Archetypes.
MCA has always allowed Ryan to weave in his passion for old Southern American folklore, culture and music into his extreme metal projects. However, this latest release has seen him turn his usual format on its head. Rather than weaving in outside elements to his black metal, Ryan has chosen to weave elements of black metal into a rich tapestry of traditional Southern folk music with a gothic twist.
The album takes the listener on a journey deep into haunted swamps, old dark forests, secretive Appalachian communities, and ancient places with dark pasts. This a truly haunting offering of music that almost feels as if it transcends time itself to transport the listener into the past. It conjures images of music such as this being played around a campfire by a local community that goes back generations. It draws a connection to the earth, to the land itself and the connection that the people who play this music and their ancestors have to that land.
The album is primarily driven by banjo rather than guitar, giving it a truly folky heart and soul. Paired with this are emotion laden clean folk style vocals that are used to tell stories of love, loss, death, faith, suicide and more. Every so often a sudden addition of black metal style vocals will make an appearance in harmony with the clean vocals, adding a truly dramatic effect. Even less frequently you’ll hear haunting monotoned softly sung/spoken vocals. Every few tracks you’ll suddenly be surprised by an electric guitar based black metal style track that completely disrupts the mood and energy on the album.
While the album is a very different offering from Ryan it almost feels like a logical if not natural progression for him with many of his releases working in elements of what this album was all about. Personally, as a huge fan of folk/blues/bluegrass music (particularly of Southern nature), I immediately fell in love with this release. If this is a style of music that you are unfamiliar with then this will serve as a fantastic introduction for you.
Listen to and order the album:
