Review Summary: Sit back, close your eyes, and allow this album to tell you a story that is somber and entertaining at the same time.
If I had to describe how A Slow Descent sounded to someone who had never heard the artist before, I would have plenty of adjectives at my disposal. The words "foreboding", "ethereal", and "dense" immediately come to mind, but the real trouble that I would have while describing it would be placing it in a particular genre. Some bands fit easily into multiple genres, but A Slow Descent seems to pick out singular sounds and inspirations from different genres that leave it without a real home. It would seem the artist uses this ability to experiment freely to his advantage, as
Utopias is quite different (and purposefully so) from its predecessor. While
On Ganymede boasted a very detailed and mapped-out storyline along with a cinematic sound rooted in dark ambient and post-rock, this album takes a much more minimalist approach. The dense atmosphere has certainly carried over in
Utopias, the mood being much more bleak than anything released before both thematically and instrumentally. Concept-wise, A Slow Descent focuses this time on a group of machines that rise up and destroy mankind, forming a utopia in the wake of the destruction. Sole member Judio has grown more comfortable composing this time, playing around with different, more subtle tempo changes within individual songs and keeping a strong central sound throughout most of the album.
Even with more mature songwriting this time around, there are still some constants that listeners may remember from the previous album. Spacey keyboards and erratic distortion are still tools used in A Slow Descent's arsenal to provide an unsettling atmosphere, and were heard in spades on his first LP. However, instead of the album following a strict timeline in terms of progressing a story,
Utopias tells it in a jumbled fashion, giving it somewhat of a stream-of-consciousness feel to the ideas present. It ends up helping the album in the long run, only because of the fact that it allows for more instant memorability from song to song. "The Utopia From Afar" not only sounds like a closer with it forlorn piano piece throughout most of song, but is also light-years away from the marching drums in the next song "Perfection Forged in the Burning Capital". The almost jaunty, spacey sounds in "Rise and Reboot" give the listener three consecutive songs that do not follow similar paths at all. Given that fact, it is even more impressive that the album still possesses quite a unified sound from start to finish instead of feeling lazily slapped together. Excluding the occasional voice samples that pepper the release, there are no vocals or lyrics for the album, which lends a bit more scrutiny to the song titles. With tracks like "Utopias Rise as Humanity Dies", it isn't hard to speculate on the idea of man letting pettiness destroy any chance of a perfect society that was ever possible, and contemplating this idea with
Utopias filling your ears is both thought-provoking and thoroughly enjoyable.
There is undoubtedly forward progress for this project with
Utopias, but it will inevitably be left with the same disclaimer as any of the other A Slow Descent releases: if you do not like darker ambient albums that can be cold, abrasive, and intense, then chances are this is not something that you would find any redeeming qualities in. This is a release that does not serve as a good introduction into experimental music, which doesn't necessarily point to anything being particularly
wrong with the album itself. Ultimately, it will be interesting to see where A Slow Descent will go next; the cold soundscapes that are found on both full-length releases share quite a few similiarities, and could cause future releases to sound somewhat stale if other avenues aren't explored. As it stands,
Utopias is a delightfully paranoid concept album that you can just get lost in, much in the same way that you can enjoy a sci-fi movie as long as you're able to suspend your disbelief. Sit back, close your eyes, and allow this album to tell you a story that is somber and entertaining at the same time.
