CD. Jewelcase CD with 8-page booklet, including lyrics
 
𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: Black metal, Atmospheric Finnish black metal
𝐋𝐲𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐬: Occultism, Mysticism
𝐋𝐚𝐛𝐞𝐥: The Sinister Flame
𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐲: Finland
𝐘𝐞𝐚𝐫: 2022
 
Everything is in the title: here on Pilgrimage, Aethyrick journey to a sacred place - one deep in their hearts, its secrets known only to them - that could verily evoke nostalgia or a simpler time or foundational feelings or any combination thereof. But, that's merely in the music itself, which takes on a more ponderous gait, mystical synth swirling around a steady mid-tempo thrust of bittersweet darkness; even the well-timed bouts of speed maintain a nobler yet more-resigned aspect. It immediately sounds like Aethyrick's black metal - that is, traditional all-caps BLACK METAL spoken in their own enrapturing dialect - and one that suggests new journeys to embark upon, new stones to uncover.
 
And yet, that's only half the story of Pilgrimage. As Aethyrick explain, "The red thread running from the first track to the last is threefold. The outer layer tells a story of an individual who cuts himself loose from the mundane world of his fellow men through the act of murder most foul and goes into the wilderness to live as a hermit - a king of his own realm, as it were - never to return. Under this narrative, one can find a poetic description of a gradual shift in perception - the rather inherent illusion of man as the very crown of creation is replaced by the realization of his absolute oneness with all nature. And yet, at the heart of it all, there are the eight steps of a foundation rite rooted in the tradition that gave birth to Aethyrick in the first place."
 
𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭:
01. The Turning Away
02. In the Chapel of One Spirit
03. Threefold Resurrection
04. Winds of the Wanderer
05. A Brother to the Stars
06. Hallowed Bloodline
07. The Moon and Her Consort
08. Kingdom
 
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