Spectres is the debut release from Bast, a band blending black metal and doom into one atmospheric entity.
It’s extremely rewarding to listen to such an engaging album and Spectres is like a journey into the dark and mysterious; gripping the listener and holding their interest throughout. It’s almost like one long song containing numerous twists and turns, with the band exploring every possible outlet they can.
The vocals are strong, but are mixed in such a way that they’re not overpowering, which is a great touch, and they’re used more like another instrument rather than taking a lead role – in fact, nothing quite takes a lead role on Spectres with everything being rather equally distributed. This works well for the most part, however it does mean that there are sections where nothing jumps out at you, which can make it a little more of a challenging listen in the more longer repetitive sections of tracks such as the instrumental track Psychonauts and arguably the heaviest track of the album, Denizens.
Spectres is a good album and it’s clear that Bast know what their strengths are with the sheer attention to detail they’ve made throughout the album, but some of the more doom-heavy sections could have possibly benefited with a little more black metal, just to inject a bit more life into the release.
7/10
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