THE ANGELIC PROCESS "Weighing Souls with Sand" CD

Whenever i write reviews of records, i find that i use the word "crushing" alot. I truly feel that lots of the stuff i listen to is indeed worthy of that adjective, but then something will come along that makes me rethink if i've really been using the word too freely. Which brings us to this amazing new record from The Angelic Process, a husband/wife duo who bring unwary listeners to their knees with their massive brand of infitely heavy shoegaze powerdrone. I've been into The Angelic Process for awhile-i have a couple of their first CDR's as well as some of their label only stuff (including the beyond gorgeous handmade wooden box they made for the track "We All Die Laughing", which appears on this record)-and it's good to see them working with a label as awesome as the excellent Profound Lore, whose releases i'm pretty much a completist with. So what does this record sound like? well, friends, it's fucking HEAVY. And i'm not just throwing that out there, this record is sick with force, it's like an anvil to the face while you're pinioned beneath about 1000 sandbags. Obvious touchstones would be Jesu and Nadja, but this record goes beyond either-and that's a pretty big compliment, i think, considering that those two are pretty much the best in the biz when it comes to metal/shoegaze. I think part of what makes the AP so dense sounding is the fact that it's all home recorded. Things are way up in the front and the whole recording is clouded over in a thick, slimy layer of murk that just makes things seem more oppressive and more buried. Windblown guitars shriek everyhwre, leaving lengthy paths of whine and mourn behind them in the starry black skies that the Angelic Process create. Drums pound out syrupy simple rhythms as repetition and montotny become hypnotism and transcendental auditory revelations. The vocals are all clean and processed and stretched way beyond their time, ripe and fat with delays and choruses and reverbs. It's a heady sonic stew, indulgent, filling, and so so delicious. Yes- i made a comparison to food. It's like "shoegaze drone cake." And of course it's beautiful, too. Every song steeped in punishing melancholy and a yearning, a truly desperate sense of want and disappointment and failure and everything that ever got fucked up in your life. This record to me is almost perfect. I wish the stuff i did with Dreamless even came close to approaching this. All i can do is lay in awe with open ears and let the music swell up in my heart.