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CD Feature/ Citadel: "Granite Sky"

  Tobias

Triumvirate is no more. A label that has led the “Dark Ambient” genre back to its black roots, as well as extended its outer limits, bids listeners farewell with a final statement of intent – “Granite Sky” closes the doors with a brutal and yet sadly emotional bang.

There is nothing truly tragic about it, all small labels have their date of expiration and we can expect founder (and man behind Citadel) Mitchell Altum to continue releasing in new and equally inspiring ways. Still, the picture of his small world of music slowly dying, with “all others once directly involved in the endeavour long since departed” (as he puts it in the booklet) befits a repertoire that seems to have concentrated on one man’s lonely strugle against the dark forces that sourround him. What’s more, Altum’s mix of Industrial harshness, decripit beats, grey-tinted harmonies, occasional spoken-word passages and shimmering lightbeams of sheer beauty has more than just its merits – it is a hint at where bleak, sound-scape-oriented music could go to if it were allowed to develop free of expectations. “Ambient” is not even remotely the right term for “Granite Sky”, as there is simply too much going on at all times and you’d desperately miss out using it as tonal wallpaper. You don’t even have to put on headphones for your mind to be taken from moments of floating stillness to menacing machinal monstrosities.

On “Essence of Life”, Altum claims that “Life’s goal is domination”. Strangely, with “Granite Sky”, his ultimate admittance of failure, he has come closer than ever before of attaining just that.