Published: March 27, 2017

Cold. Bleak. Depressing as fuck. Probably the three most important elements of the self titled debut of None, hailing from the miserable Pacific Northwest. This three track EP is full of gloriously bleak moments, and Hypnotic Dirge is releasing it in April, when hopefully the wintry feelings that this invokes will be gone.

Opener ‘Cold’ is exactly that. Numb keyboard melodies lurk within a dense buzzing soundscape of snow and ice, while howling screams loom from the darkness. Take out the vocals, and it could be a soundtrack to a helicopter ride over forested tundras. It is seriously atmospheric; the aural equivalent of snow falling on a lonely forest. ‘Wither’ has a tremendous intro, with building piano and acoustic guitar that hits this huge glacier of tremolo riff that hums menacingly just out of reach.

None have come from nowhere to unleash this masterpiece of depressive and atmospheric black metal upon the world. The heartwrenching piano that closes ‘Suffer’ is one of the most delicate and lonely moments in music, and it gives an aching closure to the EP as a whole. None are incredible; ghostly and haunting to the extreme, this EP will shake your beliefs in black metal savagery to the core. I remember when Emperor’s ‘Into the Infinity of Thoughts’ redefined my impressions of black metal, and this has done the same.