Gaerea – Loss (Album Review)

By Dave Campbell

In the most concise term, progressive music is music that moves past conventional song timing, structure, and even prose, and the bottom line is that it evolves. Masked Portuguese Black Metal band GAEREA pushes even these conventionally loose boundaries with a bulldozer until they swell and nearly break. Assuming anonymous/fake identities and using a ritualistic sigil to symbolize their craft, they want the listener to be free from names and images associated with artists and just listen to their music. Their masked markings seem to reflect the coldness and despair of their music, and even the impersonal nature of society. Masks and anonymity have been a part of rock and metal music dating all the way back to KISS in the 1970’s to GWAR in the 1980’s. Some fans find the use of anonymity and masks to be pretentious, while others welcome it as part of the entire package that a band presents, so to speak. I fall into the latter category.

As a pre-teen who first fell in love with KISS, it wasn’t just the music that I loved…it was their larger-than-life, alter egos that they created. As a 50-something adult now, I still find pleasure and mystique in masked bands, and while I am wise enough to know the difference, part of that pre-teen love is still alive in my bones. Cue modern bands like SLEEP TOKEN and GHOST. When you remove the masks, the imagery, is the music good enough to carry the band without them? Formed in the city of Porto, GAEREA has evolved from early traditional Black Metal incantations to Post and Progressive Black Metal as of late. Their newest album, titled Loss is their fifth full-length. They have this to say about the new album: “With Loss, GAEREA have fused the aesthetics of extreme metal, the openness of post-rock and an exposed, emotional nerve to achieve a new musical paradigm. This is GAEREA. Endless space, in infinite time. A bleak crisis, a beautiful passage into the vast void.”

Four songs were released ahead of the album release date. “Submerged” is first out of the gate, and you aren’t prepared for the monumental onslaught of aggression that is followed by ambiance and atmosphere. It has an end-of-the-world haste to it, as if you are clinging to that last mountain peak that has survived the massive reign of fire from the skies. Melody and emotions are also pushed here in addition to the controlled chaos, and there are even some clean vocals. This was, in fact, the perfect lead single for the album. “Hellbound” is next, and the entering tension is so thick, you can’t see what the morning shadows are hiding. What rides out of the fog is a massive beast with teeth as sharp as swords and claws that are like spears, and it races across the fire-burned landscape, adding more flames to the acrid smoked air. “I burn like fire,” he roars. Even as thick as the first two songs are, they still allow for some melodies to cross over.

“Phoenix” is a legendary immortal bird that cyclically regenerates or is otherwise born again. In modern culture, it most often refers to one of the best qualities of humans…resolve. No matter how many times you are pushed down and slammed to the floor, you get back up again. That will is what encapsulates this song, and every time you get back up, you feel a rush of adrenaline. The bass work is excellent here as well. “Nomad” recounts the feelings of someone who roams the lands by himself, never content to put down roots. In the case of this song in the context of the album, it appears to more closely describe someone who can turn off those feelings of loss or be able to push them down far enough so that they aren’t bothered by them so much. Is their poetry in this kind of solitary existence? Indeed, as the saying goes, “ignorance is bliss.” There is a balance in this song between the fiery aggression of hatred and the context to just leave a wanderer alone.

“Luminary” lunges forward with a devastating sound that threatens to crush your soul. Some of the anger releases in the chorus during the few bars of vocal harmonies, but it’s a charged song that will leave you feeling electrified. The title means “a natural light-giving body,” and this song will light a path for you through the dark. “Cyclone” begins with clean vocals and guitars. He’s awful calm when he says “cyclone, tearing through my soul,” and then comes the big punch of sound. It’s towering…literally rising above the cityscape. The harsh vocals are emotionally volatile and they carry a massive burden with them. “LBRNTH” is a shorter song, consisting mostly of a sinister atmosphere. The tones are almost playful. “Stardust” is the final song, and it’s also the longest. Warm, clean, and solemn tones lead the song. “Are you still with me, when the world goes dark, and when I fall apart?” This sequence is heightened with the addition of harsh vocals and aggressive guitars, and there is so much emotion packed into this song.

Loss is definitely an evolutionary album within the band’s inventory, and they are more focused than ever. Akin to the themes of the album, the concept of loss can hit people very differently. For some, they react with denial, even anger, and they push it down and go about their day until they just don’t feel it anymore. For others, they are outright sad, detached, and depressed, and you can visibly see it on their face. The one thing that is a constant for nearly everyone with loss however, is the hole left from the person being gone. One of my close friends who lost his wife to cancer said this ten years after she passed: “After years of her being gone, the grief has subsided. But, it’s like a hole in your backyard that you try to keep filling with soil. Each time I muster a shovel full of dirt, I toss it into the hole, but it never fills up. It just gets a little less empty.” This is the void that GAEREA talks about with the music of Loss.