Alder & Ash – Clutched in the Maw of the World

Handcrafted 7″x 5″ Case & Glass Mastered CD / Limited to 150 Hand-numbered Editions / Download code

‘Clutched in the Maw of the World’, the second full-length album from Alder & Ash, is as much maximal as it is minimal. It punctuates periods of barren calm with thunder and screams, before creeping back to the silence and the dusk. The album is comprised entirely of cello. ‘Clutched…’ combines traditional classical modalities with gnarled, heavily treated modern techniques to devastating affect. Glass, wood, rain, stone and air are all present in the music, from the crystalline notes of the “Merciless Dawn” to the unyielding crashes and lumbering slabs of distorted rhythm of “A Seat Amongst God and His Children.”

Alder & Ash treads on the experimental fringes of modern classical, perhaps too abrasive to play nice with the coy melodrama of the scene. Yet, the music has enough grit to take hold of lovers of doom, noise, and the like, perhaps winning over new fans of cello music from even the most hardened black metal die-hards.