Scarcity – Aveilut

While it is fascinating to see what people are able to take with the very concept of black metal and watch them twist it into whatever form they may please, it’s clear that not every idea is a banger. The style itself is so easily malleable with each band that comes along able to really forge it into a creation with its own identity, personality, and power the likes of which few could hope to ever truly emulate again. I didn’t know what to expect going into the debut album from Scarcity, but it became clear very quickly that this dense creation is something that demands attention and investigation for all that it brings to the table and executes wondrously.

Anytime you see the word “experimental” latched onto any body of work, whether or not it’s in the world of metal, it can just as quickly intrigue people as it could instantly tune others out with both purely thinking of the endless possibilities that could spew forth from the addition of just a single word. When done right, experimental metal quickly becomes a sight that demands to be seen with it being far more than an attractive word to drag more people in, and while Scarcity’s first performance here with “Aveilut” is far from the deep end of what experimentalism is able to conjure forth, what’s been accomplished here certainly checks off all the right boxes that such a creation should bring to the table. An eclectic blend of vicious black metal that finds itself comingling with drone in more than a few instances, this 45-minute composition broken up into five distinct chapters of Scarcity’s harrowing visages of death in multiple trials enables “Aveilut” to have an undeniably close tie with all that is death with the very sorrows and wails of the soul being felt throughout every inch of this creation. Infuse such experiences with an approach to the sound that is just as scathing and unrelenting as it is intoxicating and horrific, Scarcity has made for a record that many might want to consider as cathartic in more than a few instances, but there is no such release here. Come the end of “Aveilut”, there is naught but void with the fading echoes of this monolithic album your only companion before it too fades with its memory your only tether to sanity.

A driving force in anything related to experimental music is the desire to make your own sound amongst the swathes of others that are out there throughout the underground, but the purest forms of such a concept always come from creations such as this. Not desiring to catch the attention of others, but, rather, to purge the tortured mind and soul of such visions in a way that all but compels acts like Scarcity to deliver a performance that defies any notion of conformity or traditional structure in order to proper expel such madness. In every possible way, “Aveilut” delivers on that front with its madness offering so much more to those simply willing to look into its maw.

LISTEN to “Aveilut” on Bandcamp here.

LIKE Scarcity on Facebook here.