(By Pat ‘Riot’ Whitaker, Senior Writer/Editor, RiffRelevant.com)
Sxuperion/Valdur’s Sxuperion is back with his one-man solo project of total musical destruction, SXAP. The three track effort, “Cathedral“, was released via Bloody Mountain Records back in mid-April (May 1st for CD).
To be forthright, mere words will hardly do this justice. See, this album was created within the confines of a deep, quite isolated and claustrophobic winter in the Eastern Sierra mountain range, where Sxuperion and the BMR label reside.
The triple-headed sonic treachery afoot with these tracks is rooted in suspense-centered experimentation. You simply exist on the edge of a precipice riddled with terror and uncertainty. Each moment of each song exudes a sense of terror, a shadowy foreboding feeling that embeds itself deeply into your soul. The intense despair never ceases, never pauses to allow you to experience relief, nor a glimmer of hopefulness.
No, instead your mind is dragged into seemingly the most hellish place to ever be reached. This is all while the atmospheric spectrum journeyed across in “Ostiuum“, “Lacuum” and “Curabituur” grow ever bleaker. Tempests of chaotic extremity batter and then bleed away, piercing desolation is all that you dare muster to imagine. Relentless, unforgiving… even the momentary sparks of electronica offer not a speck of relinquishing.
Some might label this music as ambient, but I dare say that DAMNbient is more suited for it. Aurally violent and all-consuming, this sonic-based soul devourer is something you shall not soon forget. And you shall shudder to your very core when you dare recall it.
Stream SXAP “Cathedral” via Bandcamp below where you can burden your well-being with it for the paltry soul-exchanging sum of nothing, thanks to its’ NYP (Name Your Price) status.
