Arrowounds - Burial Trances of the Tentacled Set

A Closer Listen

For over a year, we’ve been enjoying the installments of Arrowounds’ Therianthrope Series as they’ve been released; the initial installment even appeared on our Best Album Covers list.  Now that the entire project is available as a four-CD box set, one last piece has been revealed: the subscriber-only initiative Burial Trances of the Tentacled Set.

For those who require a recap (“Last season on The Terianthrope Series …“), the project centers around “a race of mystic octopoid” who construct temples that reach to the sky, then tunnel below and find a whole new civilization.  While a short story kickstarts the imagination, the listener is left to fill in the details, gleaned from this ambitious quadrilogy.

Ryan S Chamberlain handles the music, while Ryan Keane contributes the art.  The two Ryans make a great team, as each compliments the other.  We cannot overstate how wonderful it is to receive album-sized art for a CD release, as these pieces deserve to be seen in large format.  When one sees the new art, one wonders if the octopoids are being invaded, or if they are the ones doing the invading.  The tentacled house appears to be approaching, but the cultists seem undisturbed.  In a dark autumn forest, a plethora of sunflowers piles up like discarded bodies.

The music is suitably dark, the tracks blending into each other to form a continuous track.  After a mystical, guitar-led beginning, the thunder rolls, the rain begins to fall and the valley is filled with dense drones, sinking into the loam.  Everything is atmosphere; one feels the notes as they gather on woolen clothes, soaking them to the rubbery bone.  In “Owlsphere Landing,” the fungi begin to grow.  The octopoids tap on a nearby beam, inviting their liege to appear.  Lighter melodies begin emerging, as if some giant, lumbering beast has passed by, leaving the observers unscathed.

The album ~ in fact, the quadrilogy ~ takes its time, as if it is walking through a wood of shrouded wonders.  The Lovecraftian angle is hard to ignore, but as dark as the project gets, it never topples into horror.  When the guitar reemerges in “Harbinger,” it operates like a guide: one who knows these woods, and is eager to light the way.  “Benthied Anomalies” exudes a deep, centered calm, shifting from tempo to tendril in its final phases.

After this groundwork, when the darkness begins to enter again, the listener is no longer afraid; one has acclimated to the shadows, and can saunter through even a graveyard without fear.  The closing “Portesar,” named after the oldest megalithic monument in the world, is like a revelation breaking through: others worshipped before us, way before us, and maybe there were octopoid creatures here after all.  (Richard Allen)