NEAR EARTH ORBIT
"End Of All Existence"
"End Of All Existence" is a digital radio podcast broadcasted by the future selves of Artaud Seth (Garden Of Delight / Merciful Nuns) and Ashley Dayour (Whispers In The Shadow / The Devil & The Universe) - both grouped under the codename Near Earth Orbit (NEO) to carry out their mission - which will be (is being) emitted on an Apocalyptic Wave frequency from a time lapse feedback transmitter for the purpose of reaching our time so that they can alert us to the extinction of civilization which will happen (is happening) in 16th March 2034, exactly as foreseen by those coming from far beyond Earth who manipulated and later controlled us since the very foundation of the mankind, perhaps deliberately created with delayed effect disorders of destructiveness and misanthropy. Worth its own formidable sci-fi horror movie, isn't it? One co-directed by John Carpenter and Ridley Scott. Or is that old foreboding of alien invasion actually coming a reality? In either case, we're fortunate to have this galvanizing, vividly bleak audio testament to the end of the world several years before it ultimately occurs - according to them, video signal is impossible to broadcast with the future technology... it's a pity. "End Of All Existence" will make you jump from one thrill to the next in a suspenseful film score vein. They've woven this chronicle of disaster foretold into the throb of sinister rave electronics, the noir eeriness sprayed from the pads, the ominous, screeching echo of the guitars and the scarily mesmeric vocal delivery. To put it simply: dark ace music.
The transmission is structured as follows:
16.03.2034 - 02:00 am CET - 1h AH (After Humans). Humanity has disappeared instantly. Computer systems and machines stay operational. Satellites in orbit communicate with super-computers and continue to transmit information around the globe. The machines will keep going as long as the electrify stays on. "The End" slowly unveils off the album, relying on dissonant synths only. One minute after, some muffled drum beats and wintry bass strums join in to lock us into the black nothingness by repetition. Gradually, the song builds up into an apocalyptic chaos, dominated by mighty, piercing riffs and air-raid sirens, all sounded at one time like the seven trumpets of Revelations.
3 months AH. Radioactive steam will vent into the atmosphere due to the water eventually evaporating. The spent fuel will eventually set fire to the building and the steam pressure will cause the storage facilities to explode, causing a non nuclear explosion, emitting radiation not only in the immediate area of the plant but around the globe driven by winds. The resulting nuclear disasters spread fallout over large areas. This is repeated dozens of times as redundant nuclear plants and spent fuel houses explode. Radioactive clouds cross the skies and rain carrying radiation to the ground. "Abandoned World" is grounded in a suspenseful electro-funk beat that propels the track inexorably like gears of an annihilation machine. Meanwhile, hopeless litanies, raging growls and elegiac, distorted wails of guitar, paint an inescapable, grim picture. Its hypnotic ping-pong loops penetrate inwardly the listener causing a realistic, cathartic plunge into the nuclear soundscape. Groovy as hell.
ZEROPOINT.. "The Warning" addresses the album's crucial moment."... / Echoes of the past / Voices of the future / First contact / Zeropoint / ... / Mass without mass / Mind without mind / Heat without heat / The warning. The warning...". The last-ditch alert transmission starts coded in a primal Morse which is based on ethnic drum thuds and fatefully chiming guitars with Morricone fuzz. Then it gradually grows into an epic, hellish finale, with gutturals, riffs and solos soaring in unison for the sake of anguish and an ever-ratcheting tension. Colossal.
87 days before ZEROPOINT. NASA has confirmed the three days of darkness will take place this year on days 21, 22 and 23 of December. During these three days without sun the land will remain in total darkness due to a solar storm.. "Observing The Sun" calmly slides over sidereal synths that gives a bad omen atmospheric feel. As the track moves forward, Artaud's other-worldly vocals and a trickle of scorching guitar roars and lack of redemption rhtythms make us sharers in the solar heating planned by T.H.E.M. to utterly end our existence. It's cinematically brilliant and the same applies to the rest of the album.
An interstellar message. They are Gods and the Architects of worlds and they come from the Nibiruan Galaxy and from everywhere and incarnate everywhere and when they incarnate on Earth they are known as T.H.E.M. (Trans Human Earth Migration). "T.H.E.M" catches by its both enchanting and haunting cadences, which conjure up a rituality of eons gone by, balancing a chilling, tribal driving with spellbinding stringed drums and harmonies so that an enjoyable lift-off is provided. You will give in to its addictive rhythm and melody, like an entranced acolyte of T.H.E.M, and somehow you will find in it grace and liberation.
7 months AH. The Sun will run out of hydrogen in its core and grow to more than twice as large and luminous as it is today, entering its red giant phase. At this point, it will heat up the Earth through wave after wave of ionized plasma, stripping off slowly our entire atmosphere and possibly engulfing our entire world into the central star itself.. "Heat Death" can only be described as a devastating sound attack. It fires on all its punchy sound cylinders as designed for a fearsome action-packed series. Trashy bass riffs are assertively thumbed and fuel the driving associated with the forbidding drum thuds and electronic bases. Radiation meets panic in the glimmering padscape and the final countdown inits: "... / Four, Three, Two, One / Goes through your helix lines / Estimated 7.9 / Heat - Heat Death - Heat Death / ...".
We are the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.. The drastic outcome comes with "Taken". Such an event deserves an equally significant sound accompaniment. That is amply achieved in this stunning song. The canny interplays among its propulsive core, formed by biting sequences of bass, machinery rattles and popping drum beats, and its nerve-jangling, soaring perimeter consisting of shrieking, jagged guitar melodies and brooding spare synths, together with the vocal skills of Artaud for toying with our fears, it all manages to take us into the deepest of emotions. Awesome doom-laden music.
16.03.2034 - 01:00 am CET. Everything past is unreal, everything future is unreal, everything imagined, absent, mental... is unreal... ultimately real is only the present moment of physical efficiency.. "Anybody Out There" brings us back to the moments leading up to Zeropoint, exactly 3 minutes and 33 seconds before it comes to pass. Some spaced-out, shimmery nylon strums and ethereal keyboard monodies put us in stellar context again. Then, we become privileged witnesses to the last radio communication between the Mission Control Centre and Ashley Dayour, suspended in the outerspace and in some way holding the fate of mankind in his hands: "What is going there?... I thought it is... what is that flying around? It's close to a lunar impact!... I have never seen that before!... OMG the apocalypse is fucking beautiful!". The signal is abruptly interrupted at that point.
End of transmission... end of all existence.
Review by Billyphobia
- 01. The End
- 02. Abandoned World
- 03. The Warning
- 04. Observing The Sun
- 05. T.H.E.M.
- 06. Heat Death
- 07. Taken
- 08. Anybody Out There
- Merciful Nuns - Official Bio (2015)
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- Merciful Nuns - Exosphere VI
- Merciful Nuns - Exoplanet EP
- Merciful Nuns - Goetia V
- Merciful Nuns - Goetia IV
- Merciful Nuns - Genesis Revealed EP
- Garden of Delight - Necromanteion (Rediscovered)
- The Devil & The Universe - Haunted Summer
- The Devil & The Universe - What Time Is Love? EP
- The Devil & The Universe - Evoking Eternity EP
- Whispers in the Shadow - The Rites of Passage
- Whispers in the Shadow - Beyond the Cycles of Time