Near Death Experience - Journey Into Darkness (1996)

Cost: $1.00

I distinctly remember seeing an ad and/or review for this CD back when it was released in a magazine--almost certainly Pit, since they ran that None of the Above Rec. ad with "Alien" ("Don't let that autopsy video fool you, I'm still alive!").  Couldn't find anything after a very brief search through my old issues, but that's probably for the best, since I don't want a review or ad blurb to subconsciously influence this post.

This is a vocalless, guitarless synth-and-programmed-drums project by Brett Clarin of Sorrow/Sorrow band photo/Apparition fame.  Considering when this was released, I suspect some attempt here to capitalize on the trend of black metal musicians doing ambient/darkwave side-projects, and while I suppose it is some type of ambient music in a general sense, for the most part it's quite different from those other projects.

There are some gothic sounding parts which are similar to the synthwork in BM intros/outros/interludes, but a lot of the music is far more riff based (just performed on synth), sounding closer to MIDI/8-bit versions of metal tracks.  While I get the feeling these recordings had their influences in more underground stuff, the MIDI-ness of the sound is far less nuanced than a traditional band with guitars, and this imparts a certain genericness to the music.  The faster stuff could very well be inspired by black and death metal, but it's equally as Slayerish.  Same thing with the slower parts--it's hard to tell whether they were inspired by doom metal or by South of Heaven.  Speaking of Slayer, their influences on the Doom soundtrack are a pretty good reference point for some of the music here, which does sound quite a bit like an old PC game soundtrack.  However, more than anything else, the darker tracks feel like music that should be playing in the background of a gore video or snuff film--many tracks would easily make a superior replacement to the original Traces of Death soundtrack.

Being all synth based, there's a definite artificial/inorganic feeling to Journey Into Darkness, which I can easily see being off-putting.  I tried to approach this more as a soundtrack or background music when listening, and in that context, it's quite enjoyable and was well worth my $1.