Xerxes The Dark :: Absurd (Zāl)

This heavy dark ambient drone album explores themes of false hopes and empty feelings, reflecting the absence of hope in our seemingly meaningless lives. These extended dark atmospheres feature a blend of warm soundscapes, melodic synthesizer accents and raw scratchy elements.

The four-way intersection of darkness, absurdity, profundity and pure silliness

The emotional tension in the music shifts between sober clarity and ethereal sadness. Absurd is the latest album from Iranian composer and producer Mohamadreza G., also known as Xerxes The Dark also as Morego Dimmer, Nyctalllz or just Morego, respectfully. This heavy dark ambient drone album explores themes of false hopes and empty feelings, reflecting the absence of hope in our seemingly meaningless lives. These extended dark atmospheres feature a blend of warm soundscapes, melodic synthesizer accents and raw scratchy elements, the four-way intersection of darkness, absurdity, profundity and pure silliness. Somehow creating a cinematic experience that sometimes juxtaposes morbid or ghastly elements with comical ones that underscore the senselessness or futility of life.

What would you do if we let you go home?

I think I am going to die. This is a universal fact, but I am not dead at the moment, so perhaps it’s only funny if you find it funny, some people laugh and others would find it maybe in bad taste, finding the sick twisted ending, leaving the listener to snicker and the protagonist to agonize and eventually cackle with mad laughter. Help, I am a rock. Trying to live an authentic life when the Universe refuses to provide any meaning or purpose to my good thing. Absurd is the individual’s struggle to find meaning in a meaningless world. Nothing we do today will matter in a million years.

Begin in darkness. “False Hope” (7:23) is framed in darkness, while an inquisitive melody gets to us through the divide. The monsters growl and scream in the distance. The song’s hope seems positive but the song title has already been painted as being fake. The monsters own the whole world, the survivor shelters in hope, and this is also where we stand listening. Absurd is aimed specifically at death, the darkest of all topics. The melody keeps repeating optimism in the face of the blackest doom. Some of the atmospheric elements include a lathe sound, or perhaps the scream of cutting steel with a saw, I lose my mind. We should not give up or surrender. After these battles, death seems restful and better than this old ceaseless struggle, the ageless monsters will always remain.

Found in the cave centuries later ::

This next track might be something they found in the cave centuries later, “Absurd Life” (8:21). The sound I hear is hollow, dark, and empty but not dangerous, until the first incident. Now I know that the shadows are definitely dangerous. Nothing is going to change, there will be no happy escape or diversion. The shapes in the fog bring all senses into a slow grind, it seems constant, like the wind. Now there is nothing urgent, extending into everything forever. Nothing will change, I might as well learn to enjoy the darkness. The dreadful hum never stops. I suspect that the shadows are plotting more betrayal, or at least nothing good, because of the way the tension builds in the darkness, which changes slowly. Now through the shifting gloom I can see the bars on the cages.

The sound of a fog horn at night, lots of distance, the feeling of the surface of the water, and fog. This is “Empty Bowl” (9:05). I am afraid of the grunting porcine rodentia. I am haunted by the perpetual sirens in the distance. Now I understand, there is perfect order because nothing moves. This place is empty and clean and strong but also dead vacant. All around in the darkness I think I see the sweeping searchlights in the black. Here the darkness stays and never gives up. Again, another wave of incoming airpower. The war never lets up. Enduring these sorrows are killing me. This is absurd. After all, the victors will finish the job and tell their version of my story. Some new rumbling, the next track opens. “Tortured for Nothing” (6:11) where we are always in caves and tunnels somewhere away from the aerial bombardment, which can always be heard in the distance. Nearby it seems almost quiet, out there things are slow. My ears are ringing for a moment, now constant, this is after the pain started and pain is almost my friend now. Here there is no hurry, there is always aerial bombardment in the distance. I can’t tell you the ending. I am not sorry about that.

Searching in the darkness ::

The album ends searching in the darkness. “No Light (at the End of the Tunnel)” (8:55) opens as a low hum which grows into raw power, then lingers just beyond reach. Constant tension always builds, the hum becomes an angry purr. My death is no longer getting closer, but death is not leaving. I know that safety could be somewhere nearby out there. I can not see. I do not know. What does it mean if I laugh in my sleep? Am I safely hidden? I do know that they will kill me in the end, but I am still here, and that is absurd. Please hide my bones.

Absurd is available on Zāl. [Bandcamp]