Until the Sky Dies
Forgotten Pact

What makes a band adventurous, is it a spirit to explore or is it that the members of the band do adventures when they aren’t making music? When it comes to duo Until the Sky Dies the latter seems more likely, at least when looking at their second effort Forgotten Pact. The cover is fine, I like the colour scheme and the motive is pretty tranquil yet a bit ominous. They are described as crushing post doom meets avant death metal, and not only that as they love to add electronics and post hardcore movement. I haven’t done any research on the subject, but it seems to me like when there are complex genre descriptions written as the main part of the press material it is usually sign of a weaker product. I may be wrong, but genre descriptions are almost all I get in the press mail, along with a tracklist, cover, and the name of the members.

Elementary, so you know the style with the crushing post doom and avant stuff with post hardcore and electronics like synths and stuff. That means slowish dirge-like dark metal with croaky vocals, not the kind of music I was imagining from the cover, I was thinking something with more dark and black feeling and not the brownish grey that these guys offer. It is a pretty static album with little variation over the tracks and the playing time of nearly fifty minutes make it seem like the album is very long, you almost expect the sky to die at the end with the birds falling down dead and the sun escaping leaving an ice-cold dead rock where people soon freeze to death before the other consequences of no sun starts manifesting themselves.

A weak album, “hopeless” was a judgement I read on a site when researching this album and band, not a bad way to put it as there isn’t much light or dynamics just a grey mass. Usually, it is pretty easy to see something positive even with the weaker album, but this one isn’t easy as I don’t really see why anyone would want to listen. The songs aren’t very good, the vocals are dreadfully bad, and the most memorable moment is the sigh of relief when it ends, and you realise that the sky didn’t die. It might be a wise choice to hide this one, it is depressing and perhaps even less cheerful than the Covid pandemic that happens at the moment.

Knowing that they wrote that the duo was adventurous had me long listening for that adventurous trait, and I cannot say that I hear it. I did, however figure that this might be good in the current pandemic situation where people need to avoid crowds and keep their distans, just play this album where crowds gather and no one will remain there for long. Perhaps that is the adventurous trait of the album, at least it is brave to make such an album knowing that it has a pretty limited use, and no real appeal. I cannot really think of anyone who would really find this album particularly pleasing to listen to, and I recommend that you look elsewhere for your next music adventure.

HHHHHHH