Vehemency On An Alignment of Dead Stars, the extremely prolific Australian black metal cult Drowning the Light has reached its highest point, at least so far that is. The band's development every year from a release to another release has been clear, and one of the helping things is the inclusion of a full line-up - in other words, Drowning the Light doesn’t sound like a cheap bedroom black metal project anymore.

An Alignment of Dead Stars is a massive album: in length (70 minutes), in style, and in the size of the booklet. Although the compositions usually follow the common Drowning the Light pattern with sorrowful atmosphere in mid-tempo, tracks like ”Drinking the Sacrament of Eternity (Revenge of the Impaler)” show elements of RAC. Every now and then an acoustic interlude appears, and the acoustic guitars are often involved in the black metal songs too, building the songs to their climaxes. Synths have the same role, and it is these certain elements that keep the album from sounding too monotonous.

Hence the length of the album is not a too high barrier for me - anyways, most often I listen to this album in two sessions. An Alignment of Dead Stars is indeed the best release Drowning the Light has come up with so far, and it is clear that the members have put lots of thought into it. The only mediocre moments appear near the center of the album where songs like ”Crippled Lies and a Fallen Prophet” and ”Gone...” don’t reach as far as the rest of the album. Anyhow, An Alignment of Dead Stars flows nicely from the beginning to the end. Production-wise the album is unsurprisingly underground sounding, but also the clearest album they have put out so far. It will be interesting to see how, or if, Drowning the Light will ever beat this monster.