Deludium Skies is a one-man psychedelic rock/noise-rock/doom band from Austria – a country that has not produced a whole lot of cool bands from the midst of these genres at least as far as my knowledge goes. Deludium Skies though is seemingly on a path to put things right and put Austria on the map so to speak.
Deludium Skies has released a bunch of albums to date, as well as through various different monikers, but the latest of these albums might just be the most interesting one to date. The album is titled 'Anthropocene' and it packs some fine repetitive noise and drone infused krauty psych. 'Arose from the Debris' starts the album off with exactly this kind of material. Spanning more than 8 minutes the track propels forward with a heavy post-apocalyptic noisy psych vibe, with the final mammoth track 'Conclusion' seemingly concluding what 'Arose from the Debris' started off. 'Spear & Gun'' and 'Tooth & Claw' continue with the same bleak repetitive noisy psych theme, albeit in a more flowing and meandering way. Indeed all of the album with its bleak atmosphere and catchy repetitive drumming produces an atmosphere of a bad trip. There are tons of psych bands that use repetition to ascend somewhere, while Deludium Skies apparently aims at descending down some more sinister dark paths. Paths that apparently require a jew's harp. Deludium Skies often reminds me Skullflower and Ramleh to a certain degree, albeit with clear differences. 'Crystalline Wasteland' and 'Impure Rain'' exemplify this pretty well, with the first one sounding a bit like earlier Skullflower, while the latter one sounding something from Skullflower's later era. The next tracks in turn sound a bit like Deludium Skies' earlier era, while 'Between The Concrete Trees' concludes the album with a hefty dose of jew's harp, making for one of the best songs of the album as well.
Overall Anthropocene stands out as one of the coolest releases from 2020 so far and should suit anyone who is into earlier Skullflower material, and those who always figured Skullflower definitely needed some more jew's harp and more drone-infused Earth sound to it. While making these comparisons to Skullflower, Ramleh and Earth, then it is actually quite hard to pin down the sound of Deludium Skies with any sort of comparisons as it sounds somewhat unique in many ways. Let us call it noisy drone and kraut infused post-apocalyptic psych with some jew's harp on the side. Music that would perfectly fit the soundtracks of strange films about the post-apocalypse.
Deludium Skies: https://deludiumskies.bandcamp.com/album/anthropocene
