Review by Felix on November 20, 2022.

When some robotic, mechanised black metal pours out of the speakers and a malevolent gnome spreads sinister wisdom (or what he thinks is), there's a good chance it's a British band, released by Purity Through Fire. Frosten, Nefarious Dusk, Úlfarr… yes, it is true that the Norwegians were the first that made their national scene to a big playground of incest, but now the Empire strikes back. No sex please, I’m British – this was yesterday! Here comes the next murderous legion called Helvellyn. And I admit: it’s fun to make some stupid jokes about these bands who sound pretty similar, but they also deliver reliably good music. The Lore Of The Cloaked Assembly marks no exception.

Okay, the intro seems to be stolen from the archives of the clown who puts himself to shame by calling himself Rock'n Rolf. But Running Wild disappear pretty soon. Viscous guitar lines get the upper hand and the lead singer doesn’t sing, but he screams, nags and cries in order to underline the dark vibes of the music. Due to the not very organic production, the album almost delivers an industrial undertone, but that’s not bad at all. It may be surprising, but it fits the approach of the five-piece.

Equipped with an adequate, pretty good artwork, The Lore Of The Cloaked Assembly puts the focus on homogeneity. All of its eight songs came from the same, stinking womb. They do not significantly differ from each other, neither in terms of style, nor with regard to their quality level. Hellvelyn have enough talent to keep their kind of song-writing interesting and fresh. 'Never Ending Moonlit Spires', the longest track, scores with its stirring guitar work right from the beginning while sending some greetings to (old) Mayhem or lesser known bands like Germany’s Eternity. This is just one example – it goes without saying that I could mention more songs here. Nevertheless, I appreciate the fact very much that here exactly the longest track is no lukewarm composition or even a total flop. Why? Well, the album clocks in at 38 minutes. This is no opulent playtime, but gross equals net here and so I see no reason to moan concerning quality.

The constant lava flow of the guitars creates an opaque atmosphere. Doing without surprising twists and turns is part of the concept and Helvellyn are obviously not interested in making compromises. One can say they walk at the border to monotony, but the authentic misanthropy and the unbreakable density of their material makes up for this. And by the way, this band is not the first enemy of innovation and it will not be the last. Just like true evil itself, black metal has already a lot of different faces and forms and there is no need to add a further one. It makes much more sense to pen an output that shows the glorious shape of the unspoiled subgenre. This is what Hellvelyn have done here and they did it in a very competent manner. The rampant closer takes the listener on the final 'Unholy Voyage' with its whiplashing drums, the icy guitars and the insane screams and as soon as its last tones have faded, every supporter of generic black metal will be satisfied.

Rating: 7.8 out of 10

Review by Emma on July 11, 2010.

"Into The Fire Of Isolation" is the aptly named split between Ambient/Industrial/BM project Grauen Pestanz and minimal BM group Miasma. The split is organized differently from most, the tracks go back and forth between the two acts, which really makes a difference in how one experiences the split in its entirety. Some might find this back and forth thing annoying as they are two different worlds in action, at the same time a new story might be woven from their relationship that would not have taken place before. As different at the two are though, both bands are attached to the same umbilical cord for emotional inspiration, making this split a very appropriate combination.

Miasma’s ‘Inceptum Quod Visum’ is a layered collage of occult mutterings popping in and out of audible focus that eventually leads to mid-paced bm riffs trudging through mud. Its nothing you haven’t heard before, but its still good. The track changes and you find yourself in the equally bleak and dim reality of Grauen Pestanz, but something is happening. Truly guttural moans backed by barely audible chugging and there are whispers that echo against a wet surface beneath the earth, utterances in the sewer?

The cover art is appropriately hand-drawn, minimal in subject and monochromatic, exactly what one would expect. Props go for the non-digital DIY approach on behalf of the man behind Grauen Pestanz, the only problem is among the billion other BM-esque covers I never would have noticed this album. A hint of color is encouraged, not a whole rainbow, just a bit of one, that would have made all the difference.

Both sides keep their sound consistent in each track; Grauen Pestanz keeps the guttural ululations and chants, an almost industrial sound but not purely. The exception is the final track ‘Formless Reflection’ in which he reverts to strictly BM. Miasma keeps the consistent raw bm sound, all of which is good listening, but would’ve been found more interesting ten years ago if not further back. All in all lovers of mid-paced raw bm and/or atmospheric ritual sound will enjoy "Into The Fire Of Isolation". While at first I found it a bit on the boring side this split has grown on me and deserves at least one turn in your CD player or sound system before being put down.

Categorical Rating Breakdown

Musicianship: 7
Atmosphere: 9
Production: 6
Originality: 8
Overall: 7.5

Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Review by Nathan on December 27, 2020.

I get that it’s easy to miss new cool sounds with the ridiculous amount of new bands forming and the information overload and tailored-recommendations-into-oblivion that the internet tends to provide, but even so, I like to think I still have a pretty good handle on what’s going on with extreme metal in my own province. Then a band like Fractal Generator comes along and just completely blows me the fuck away and makes me realize how little I know about the music. I mean, I would have expected something of this caliber from a region like Toronto or Montreal, but Sudbury, with a population of just 125,000? That just doesn’t happen. Not something that immerses me so immediately and keeps me hooked the whole way through several listens later. Hell, that’s rare for music to do to me in general!

After looking into the members behind this band, it seems the ringleader is Darren Favot, who appears to be some kind of secret extreme metal polymath. Besides being the sole constant in Fractal Generator, as he’s also the founding force behind atmospheric black metal project Finnr’s Cane, an amazing post-black band for those of you that like your Alcest and Lantlos. Both bands are very atmospheric, but that is all they have in common, and the means by which they achieve their otherworldly vibes are very different. Finnr’s Cane uses simplistic beauty and the space between notes to achieve the feelings it does, and Fractal Generator uses claustrophobic, guitar stuttering in a suffocating vacuum of production to create atmosphere through musical entropy. Warforged isn’t a terrible comparison, as they have a similar means of creating texture in the guitars, but the end result sounds more like the churning, clinical moments of Morbid Angel and Aeon with some of the modern sci-fi flourishes of artists like Blood Incantation and Artificial Brain. Influences aside, there’s something to these riffs that is completely their own - there’s a lot of melody added as a garnish, even though the album rarely relents with its hyper-precise pummeling. It overwhelms you, but it’s breathing, in, like, a fourth-dimensional way you can only fully understand on psychedelics.

Fractal Generator has a full-length out before this one, and while I’m still pissed I slept on this band until this year, I don’t think the first album would have grabbed me in the same way this did. I definitely would have been impressed by Apothosyntheosis, it’s still technical, distinct and gives the feeling of being trapped in a cosmic maelstrom, but the song structures don’t feel as complete and don’t flow as well. Macrocosmos, on the other hand, has trimmed some fat, smoothed out the transitions and focuses the songs more. Tracks don’t venture all over the place, instead using hints of black metal-tinged dissonance, cybernetic beeping and synthesized echoes to keep you captivated as the robotic drums and dry chugging grind you in their gears.

By fine-tuning their aesthetic, the album feels more complete from start to finish, with each song exploring a more specific theme or texture within the greater context of the album. They’ve toed the line perfectly between creating dense, heady guitarwork that sounds active and challenging to play, while still keeping a sense of groove intact that constantly drives the song forward and keeps it catchy. With Hate Eternal-inspired riffs that have a natural aversion to melody, that’s especially impressive, and in the past has only been done by Morbid Angel, Hate Eternal on their early stuff, and...that’s about it really. Fractal Generator has it all: a cool, unique vibe that draws you in right away, enough skill and diversity in the riffs to make you stay for the entire album, and just enough odd twists and turns to make you go ‘fuck, I wanna hear that again’. If this was released in 2020 it would have been a top-5 album of the year for me without issue, so I guess 2021 has an extremely strong front-runner on my year-end list right off the bat. Macrocosmos is never boring, and the band’s potential seems limitless right now.

Rating: 9 out of 10

Review by Nathan on December 27, 2020.

I get that it’s easy to miss new cool sounds with the ridiculous amount of new bands forming and the information overload and tailored-recommendations-into-oblivion that the internet tends to provide, but even so, I like to think I still have a pretty good handle on what’s going on with extreme metal in my own province. Then a band like Fractal Generator comes along and just completely blows me the fuck away and makes me realize how little I know about the music. I mean, I would have expected something of this caliber from a region like Toronto or Montreal, but Sudbury, with a population of just 125,000? That just doesn’t happen. Not something that immerses me so immediately and keeps me hooked the whole way through several listens later. Hell, that’s rare for music to do to me in general!

After looking into the members behind this band, it seems the ringleader is Darren Favot, who appears to be some kind of secret extreme metal polymath. Besides being the sole constant in Fractal Generator, as he’s also the founding force behind atmospheric black metal project Finnr’s Cane, an amazing post-black band for those of you that like your Alcest and Lantlos. Both bands are very atmospheric, but that is all they have in common, and the means by which they achieve their otherworldly vibes are very different. Finnr’s Cane uses simplistic beauty and the space between notes to achieve the feelings it does, and Fractal Generator uses claustrophobic, guitar stuttering in a suffocating vacuum of production to create atmosphere through musical entropy. Warforged isn’t a terrible comparison, as they have a similar means of creating texture in the guitars, but the end result sounds more like the churning, clinical moments of Morbid Angel and Aeon with some of the modern sci-fi flourishes of artists like Blood Incantation and Artificial Brain. Influences aside, there’s something to these riffs that is completely their own - there’s a lot of melody added as a garnish, even though the album rarely relents with its hyper-precise pummeling. It overwhelms you, but it’s breathing, in, like, a fourth-dimensional way you can only fully understand on psychedelics.

Fractal Generator has a full-length out before this one, and while I’m still pissed I slept on this band until this year, I don’t think the first album would have grabbed me in the same way this did. I definitely would have been impressed by Apothosyntheosis, it’s still technical, distinct and gives the feeling of being trapped in a cosmic maelstrom, but the song structures don’t feel as complete and don’t flow as well. Macrocosmos, on the other hand, has trimmed some fat, smoothed out the transitions and focuses the songs more. Tracks don’t venture all over the place, instead using hints of black metal-tinged dissonance, cybernetic beeping and synthesized echoes to keep you captivated as the robotic drums and dry chugging grind you in their gears.

By fine-tuning their aesthetic, the album feels more complete from start to finish, with each song exploring a more specific theme or texture within the greater context of the album. They’ve toed the line perfectly between creating dense, heady guitarwork that sounds active and challenging to play, while still keeping a sense of groove intact that constantly drives the song forward and keeps it catchy. With Hate Eternal-inspired riffs that have a natural aversion to melody, that’s especially impressive, and in the past has only been done by Morbid Angel, Hate Eternal on their early stuff, and...that’s about it really. Fractal Generator has it all: a cool, unique vibe that draws you in right away, enough skill and diversity in the riffs to make you stay for the entire album, and just enough odd twists and turns to make you go ‘fuck, I wanna hear that again’. If this was released in 2020 it would have been a top-5 album of the year for me without issue, so I guess 2021 has an extremely strong front-runner on my year-end list right off the bat. Macrocosmos is never boring, and the band’s potential seems limitless right now.

Rating: 9 out of 10

Review by Nathan on December 27, 2020.

I get that it’s easy to miss new cool sounds with the ridiculous amount of new bands forming and the information overload and tailored-recommendations-into-oblivion that the internet tends to provide, but even so, I like to think I still have a pretty good handle on what’s going on with extreme metal in my own province. Then a band like Fractal Generator comes along and just completely blows me the fuck away and makes me realize how little I know about the music. I mean, I would have expected something of this caliber from a region like Toronto or Montreal, but Sudbury, with a population of just 125,000? That just doesn’t happen. Not something that immerses me so immediately and keeps me hooked the whole way through several listens later. Hell, that’s rare for music to do to me in general!

After looking into the members behind this band, it seems the ringleader is Darren Favot, who appears to be some kind of secret extreme metal polymath. Besides being the sole constant in Fractal Generator, as he’s also the founding force behind atmospheric black metal project Finnr’s Cane, an amazing post-black band for those of you that like your Alcest and Lantlos. Both bands are very atmospheric, but that is all they have in common, and the means by which they achieve their otherworldly vibes are very different. Finnr’s Cane uses simplistic beauty and the space between notes to achieve the feelings it does, and Fractal Generator uses claustrophobic, guitar stuttering in a suffocating vacuum of production to create atmosphere through musical entropy. Warforged isn’t a terrible comparison, as they have a similar means of creating texture in the guitars, but the end result sounds more like the churning, clinical moments of Morbid Angel and Aeon with some of the modern sci-fi flourishes of artists like Blood Incantation and Artificial Brain. Influences aside, there’s something to these riffs that is completely their own - there’s a lot of melody added as a garnish, even though the album rarely relents with its hyper-precise pummeling. It overwhelms you, but it’s breathing, in, like, a fourth-dimensional way you can only fully understand on psychedelics.

Fractal Generator has a full-length out before this one, and while I’m still pissed I slept on this band until this year, I don’t think the first album would have grabbed me in the same way this did. I definitely would have been impressed by Apothosyntheosis, it’s still technical, distinct and gives the feeling of being trapped in a cosmic maelstrom, but the song structures don’t feel as complete and don’t flow as well. Macrocosmos, on the other hand, has trimmed some fat, smoothed out the transitions and focuses the songs more. Tracks don’t venture all over the place, instead using hints of black metal-tinged dissonance, cybernetic beeping and synthesized echoes to keep you captivated as the robotic drums and dry chugging grind you in their gears.

By fine-tuning their aesthetic, the album feels more complete from start to finish, with each song exploring a more specific theme or texture within the greater context of the album. They’ve toed the line perfectly between creating dense, heady guitarwork that sounds active and challenging to play, while still keeping a sense of groove intact that constantly drives the song forward and keeps it catchy. With Hate Eternal-inspired riffs that have a natural aversion to melody, that’s especially impressive, and in the past has only been done by Morbid Angel, Hate Eternal on their early stuff, and...that’s about it really. Fractal Generator has it all: a cool, unique vibe that draws you in right away, enough skill and diversity in the riffs to make you stay for the entire album, and just enough odd twists and turns to make you go ‘fuck, I wanna hear that again’. If this was released in 2020 it would have been a top-5 album of the year for me without issue, so I guess 2021 has an extremely strong front-runner on my year-end list right off the bat. Macrocosmos is never boring, and the band’s potential seems limitless right now.

Rating: 9 out of 10

Review by Emma on July 11, 2010.

"Into The Fire Of Isolation" is the aptly named split between Ambient/Industrial/BM project Grauen Pestanz and minimal BM group Miasma. The split is organized differently from most, the tracks go back and forth between the two acts, which really makes a difference in how one experiences the split in its entirety. Some might find this back and forth thing annoying as they are two different worlds in action, at the same time a new story might be woven from their relationship that would not have taken place before. As different at the two are though, both bands are attached to the same umbilical cord for emotional inspiration, making this split a very appropriate combination.

Miasma’s ‘Inceptum Quod Visum’ is a layered collage of occult mutterings popping in and out of audible focus that eventually leads to mid-paced bm riffs trudging through mud. Its nothing you haven’t heard before, but its still good. The track changes and you find yourself in the equally bleak and dim reality of Grauen Pestanz, but something is happening. Truly guttural moans backed by barely audible chugging and there are whispers that echo against a wet surface beneath the earth, utterances in the sewer?

The cover art is appropriately hand-drawn, minimal in subject and monochromatic, exactly what one would expect. Props go for the non-digital DIY approach on behalf of the man behind Grauen Pestanz, the only problem is among the billion other BM-esque covers I never would have noticed this album. A hint of color is encouraged, not a whole rainbow, just a bit of one, that would have made all the difference.

Both sides keep their sound consistent in each track; Grauen Pestanz keeps the guttural ululations and chants, an almost industrial sound but not purely. The exception is the final track ‘Formless Reflection’ in which he reverts to strictly BM. Miasma keeps the consistent raw bm sound, all of which is good listening, but would’ve been found more interesting ten years ago if not further back. All in all lovers of mid-paced raw bm and/or atmospheric ritual sound will enjoy "Into The Fire Of Isolation". While at first I found it a bit on the boring side this split has grown on me and deserves at least one turn in your CD player or sound system before being put down.

Categorical Rating Breakdown

Musicianship: 7
Atmosphere: 9
Production: 6
Originality: 8
Overall: 7.5

Rating: 7.5 out of 10