Plenty of bands play music that sounds dark, but few can make every note bleed black and breathe smoke. Count Locrian as part of that select circle. Something about the Chicago trio's sound is inherently ominous-- it's hard to imagine them playing "Chopsticks" without turning it into an earth-threatening thunderstorm. That effect is obvious in their noisier, more chaotic moments, where metallic noise and intense howls coalesce into scary crescendos. But it's just as strong in their quieter, more ambient stretches, when they build tension not from heightened climax but from sustained nuance.
The Clearing could be Locrian's most nuanced record so far. Throughout, they use slow, far-off sounds rather in-your-face noise to thicken the atmosphere. A frozen piano line, distant drum roll, or shadowy bass loop is often all the group needs to forge a palpable mood. More than half of the side-long, album-closing title track is made of such minimal material. Yet somehow the band mines it for 17 minutes of sonic pressure. When the song eventually swells into a gnarled thatch of static and low end, Locrian sound less like a group gaining momentum than a mountain rising up through the ocean after years of rumbling below the surface.
There are more covert moments of tension on The Clearing, and they're pretty powerful, too. Most pulverizing is "Augury in an Evaporating Tower", whose mix of tones showcases the band's agility. At points, the cascading drums and elongated screams conjure Prurient screamer Dominick Fernow's black metal band Ash Pool. But the band deftly shifts to oscillating drone and sky-seeking guitar that sound like Earth's Dylan Carlson battling a synth monster. "Chalk Point", on the other hand, takes a more traditional path to its climax, building piano chords into a kind of post-rock metal dirge.
Still, what impresses most about The Clearing is not specific turns or isolated moments, but the overwhelming mood it creates. That's what makes the album title apt-- Locrian's dark atmospheres aren't empty spaces, but stark traces of something that was there not long before. In other words, they're as good at creating negative spaces as they are at filling them in. Even when they get so subdued that they approach silence, you can hear ghosts echoing in their void.
