Matanzas

Stunning, beautifully dark atmospherics from the very start. From Dredging the Swamp onwards I am immersed in wonderfully controlled shadow ambience. Where Has the Sun Gone is a fine little epic musical adventure into cold environments, knowing that if such a star, so essential to our survival were to vanish, we wouldn't even be considering such a question. We would probably be long gone, floating in the aether aimlessly. At best wondering as we wander. Nice touches that emphasise such finality.

Then imagine those cold tendrils of icy deep water curling round you, pulling you under into an alien environment, where the lack of air and temperature slowly and softly benumb your senses and eventually your physical ability to survive the plunge into some dark, subaqua crevasse that goes on forever. Drifting downwards for an eternity of as your consciousness peters away slowly. Caught in the Undertow.

Red Tide is quite lively because now there is consciousness, as you watch the bloody waves lapping at your feet and the death knell ringing somewhere in the distance. Slowly the realisation of what such a situation entails, a planet bleeding to death. Then, if you are lucky and have not been overwhelmed by that horrific red tide and dragged hopelessly into the denizens of hell, you get to walk God's Highway and even then there is no surety about where you will end up after omnipotent judgement. Is that the pearly gates I can hear, slamming shut forever.

Finally, the visceral sense of the wonder of human existence ending up as a piece of food for a magnificent animal from the age of dinosaurs. Prehistory hangs in there, burying sharp teeth into your puny body and tearing you into digestible chunks of flesh. Any meat fit to eat, by hook or by crook. Stop! Don't stand so close to the edge of that red tide...