Assembly of Light – Assembly of Light (2012)

Better known for collaborating on The Body’s “All The Waters Of The Earth Turn To Blood”, the 20+ piece choral ensemble named Assembly of Light is releasing their debut full-length release this August through At a Loss Recordings. For fans of eerie and ethereal music this debut release is filled with very dreamy moments that can only be delivered by a full-scale choir. However, if you are looking for any Metal or something unique as what The Body produces in their releases, this release is not really up your alley.

Presenting six tracks, this self-titled release showcases the singing abilities of the choir and nicely uses all its vocal power to create truly memorable moments… for the right listener. Some of the musical arrangements like the opening of “Transition” are more up the alley of experimental Metal but they often seem to dilute very fast and you are just left with angelic voices. While this is not a bad thing if that’s your cup of tea, but expecting something completely different we are a bit disappointed.

Our favorite track of this release is the contrasting “Treelight”. In this track we have some very potent guitar riffs that are nicely outclassed by the choir’s performance. There are also some male clean vocals that reminded us a bit of Elend, but the ‘drone-like’ atmosphere of the heavier side of the music push it more towards the experimental approach The Body takes on their releases. This track is pretty solid and generates a truly unique atmosphere, but it is still not enough to justify a Metal head (or even an ‘experimental’ Metal head) the purchase of such release.

The choir really gets going with the three parts of the track “Into The Woods”, creating some haunting bits but ultimately sounding like, in ‘lamens terms’, church music. While we are not too fond of Christmas choir music and such, but we still love bands like Haggard and Therion, we don’t think this is the release for us or fans of the same. We fully understand the appeal and achievements of Assembly of Light, but we don’t really think we need to have this stuff pedaled to us as experimental music or such; in that case, Elend is by far superior.

Release: August 28th, 2012

Genre: Chorale

Country: USA