Anomalie is a one man piece hailing from Austria, its only member Marrok has worked with Harakiri for The Sky, and Refugium is his latest album, released in 2015. When you first hear the album, a strong Insomnium-like atmosphere is the first thing that comes to mind. Later on, you notice plenty of early era Alcest guitar work combined at times with riffs sounding very similar to the ones present in Katatonia's’ Discouraged Ones. Like drinking some cocktail that reminds you of more than one beverage, but at the same time has its own original taste. The music itself can be described as a nice mixture of Melo-death, blackgaze and depressive rock, coated with surprisingly understandable high-pitched growls. Nothing groundbreaking, but extremely well packed. There are no songs that could be described as fillers, Refugium stays strong from start to finish.
The first part of the album is leaned more towards Melo-death, with thumping In Fear of Tomorrow and Spiritual Distortion being the high-notes. Later on, the music turns to a combination of depressive rock and blackgaze, with Between Reality and The World Beyond as a prime example of the shift; an excellent piece of music infused with Katatonic riffs and blackgaze athmosphere. Towards the end, things change again, with Freiflug 48° 23´ N, 16° 19’ O, a beautiful à la Alcest blackgaze venture. Ten and a half minute long album closer, titled Refugium feels like all of the styles mentioned before had collided and exploded in a stunning cacophony of sound.
Quality production just adds up value, all parts are tightly fitted together without any of them being overpowered. Length is just over fifty minutes spread over eight songs.
Refugium doesn’t try to do anything groundbreaking, you won’t be fascinated with its songs, or will remember them in a few years, but it has an abundance or reasons for recommendation. The sheer number of styles present, high-quality delivery and lack of subpar songs are just some of them. If you like Melo-death, Alcest or depressive rock this album is for you. Everyone else, check it out and see if there’s something in it that could light your interest spark.
