‘In the eleventh station, Watching myself repeat the sin, In the eleventh station, Guilt, shame, useless flagellation’ (Fled)

The cover art to Through The Slow Dusk is strikingly visceral.  It’s apocalyptic tenor, intertwined with that of the title, is infused with a sense of mourning for a civilisation that has now passed the point of no return.  Trapped in a cycle of rapacious exploitation of both people and planet. That even now attempts to avert catastrophe, while essential to nurturing a sliver of sustaining hope, will only postpone the inevitable.  An increasingly dystopian delay of execution.

New York’s FRKSE has been an active musical project since 2009, releasing five previous albums and numerous EPs and split collaborations over that period.  Through The Slow Dusk feels like an important step in the band’s evolution, seeing the band’s unsettling atmospherics moulded into a still insidiously discomfiting, but more structured, assemblage.  It remains slippery to categorise, flirting as it does with the mechanical yet limber soundscapes of Mai Mai Mai and the electronic dissonance of Scorn, together with fleeting flares of more dance inclined rhythms in the vein of Freak Genes.  The atmosphere that unfurls is intriguingly as slyly infectious as it is bleakly claustrophobic

The semi-shouted vocals are more prominent within the mix and present on all tracks bar the two instrumental tracks, most notably the shimmering Oaf.  This adds further solidity to the song construction as they are deftly interwoven with the looping electronics, ominous effects, and brooding restraint of the percussion.  The opener, Foam, sets the tone perfectly (I particularly love the moment when the chant of ‘The Power Of Prayer’ locks in with the taut underlying rhythm) and it is matched in its industrial exhortations by the equally pulsating Ink.  In contrast, Wrote offers a more lo-fi yet no less immersive embrace, while a bristling climax is delivered by the sparsely seething agitations of Fled.