Though it’s easy to despair at the state of the UK in 2020, the British Landscape remains an untouchable source of beauty so grand that not even the Tories could ruin it. It is a constant source of inspiration for countless creators and artists across the British Isles, and this much is certainly true of Gnarl, the solo project of Thomas Ozers (Catafalque, The Dead Yesterdays). The project’s debut album is an expansive bout of drone, noise and doom inspired by the British landscape and the folklore associated with it. You can almost picture the thick grey fog of an autumn morning as opener ‘Grey Mare’ begins to unfurl, and the album’s distorted noise takes on the form of pouring rain on a dark wintery day.
This is an album that places you smack-bang in the middle of the stark British countryside without a map. On ‘A Hymn Of Emptiness’ we hear the restless oceans that surround us, and on ‘A Cold Rain Will Fall’ the vast drones are accompanied by the clangs of raindrops falling on a tin roof, before closer ‘All Seasons End’ reminds us either in hope or in vain that the end of winter is never too far away. As spring approaches, the days will grow longer and the cold won’t linger, but the cycle of the seasons and of life will continue regardless.
This expansive album drops tomorrow through Trepanation Recordings, but we’re thrilled to be sharing it with you ahead of release. Check it out below.
The Great Blackness is out 13th November on Trepanation Recordings. Order here.
Words: George Parr
