One of the fastest ways to a music critic’s heart is a seamless synthesis of styles. Anytime a group successfully blends adjacent or dissimilar genres, the results can push boundaries with a truly engaging, unique listen. Such is the case with Ache Pillars, the latest EP from one-person band Folian. The four-track journey does explore some familiar territory, which fans of Have a Nice Life and Planning for Burial should find enticing. But Folian employs a distinctly electronic edge to their sound, throwing in elements of (dark) ambient, drone metal and post-rock to round out an ethereal and enveloping experience.
Through all of this, Folian dabbles between dissonance and sonic beauty in equal measures. At the onset, “Clearing in the Shadows” opens with unsettling samples fitting for a horror soundtrack, before slowly shifting into a somber trio of vocals, guitar and a wall of ambiance. The ensuing post-
The track’s climax erupts in a swell of
After a noise-laden interlude on “Gift of Sorrow,” the main event arrives with “Where All This Dust Comes From.” The nearly 13-minute closer is, ironically, the centerpiece of the EP, opening with what could be the subdued, reverb-heavy hook on a
The track overall succeeds beautifully at splicing the ideas and vibes introduced by the preceding three tracks, with a droning
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Ache Pillars is available now via Apneic Void.