The Metal Resource – mauce.nl

Ambient black metal and a space theme seems to be a rather odd combination.  One would expect something cold and dark, perhaps a wintry forest in Scandinavia or something similar for a setting, but then again, outer space would be dark and cold as well, so perhaps this does make some sense.  In my experience, Vials of Wrath  have set an incredibly high bar for ambient black metal with the Seeking Refuge release, so given my relative lack of ambient black metal, that is the standard I will apply to this genre.

Quest for Serenity is solo project by one of the members of Winter’s Dawn, who  have released Wandering Through the Realm of Frosted Beauty, an black metal album that leaned heavily on the cold, winter-like atmosphere for their sound but also as one reviewer put  it, played a “more introspective and regressive” style of black metal.  Prior to Into a New Dimension, Quest for Serenity have released since 2012, a five-part series of albums, The Labyrinth Chronicles comprised of Within the Labyrinth, Whispers of Despair, Beyond the Labyrinth, Moonlight Worship, and Amidst the Tempest.

Into a New Dimension opens up with an instrumental, one of four on the album.  “Beyond Known Boundaries” sets the overall tone for the album with much of the background talking sounding as if it was taken from NASA and various space launches.  Keyboards and the countdown description dominate the track.  “Darkened Horizon” is where the black metal comes in with the almost droning guitars so often found in the genre but in this case they quickly shift into almost the background.  Production and mixing on the album tends to have the keyboards, vocals and programming dominate with the guitars and everything else, being more a wall of noise.  As expected, vocals are largely indiscernible.  The lyrics do however portray the loneliness of space and the struggle to move through the storms of life to a new awakening “guided by a divine will”.

Interestingly, all of the instrumentals on the album are exactly 2:07.  I’m not sure if that’s significant or not but there must have been some sort of reason behind it or a lot of random chance.  Throughout the album there is a constant soundtrack of recordings playing that sound as if they were taken straight from news reports on space travels in the past.  Definitely an interesting choice and as mentioned earlier, somewhat out of the ordinary for the genre.  Unfortunately, for me at least, these were a bit distracting.

Clocking in at 30 minutes in length, Into a New Dimension may actually seem much longer.  This can be either a good or bad characteristic depending on your point of view.  Unfortunately for me the production and mixing really took away my enjoyment.  There are moments here and there when instruments become discernible, but in general the music is just droning that ends up being a bit repetitive.  Quickly going through the album when I first received it, I was thinking every song was actually the same as they tend to sound very similar, with the exception of the instrumentals, where keyboards and some acoustic guitar distinguish them.  I like the concept and the lyrical backstory but the song construction and mixing/production simply didn’t support those elements.

Rating: 5/10

Written by John Jackson

 Tracklist
1. Beyond Known Boundaries 02:07
2. Darkened Horizon 04:50
3. Intensive Search 02:07
4. Inner Conflict 04:09
5. Unknown Entities 04:27
6. Maximum Overload 04:07
7. Into A New Dimension 02:07
8. The Undiscovered Country 04:00
9. Flight Of Victory 02:07

Band Members
Amnon – all instruments, programming, vocals

Record Label: Independent, 2014

Weblinks: Facebook / Website / Reverbnation

Video for  ‘Inner Conflict’