“Industrial clad workouts dominate on Cluster Lizard’s geometrically inclined “Edge Of The Universe”. Throughout the album, the attention to detail is profound. Neatly tied together, a whole variety of unusual frequencies grace the songs giving them an immersive, hard to pin down quality. Rhythms exist to help explore a greater deal of textures. Much of the heart of the album wraps itself around these otherworldly layers of sound that Cluster Lizard has so elegantly crafted.Verging on harsh noise is the uneasy opener, the anxious “Being Alive Isn’t Everything” where various hisses and rumbles form most the track. Things lighten up a bit on the gentler work of “The End Of Time” where the driving rhythm gives the song a stately feeling. Glistening ambience dominates on the near-silence of “Fractal Core” where a few moments represent an extreme form of minimalism, at least until Cluster Lizard lets the entirety of the piece come into full, messy bloom. Channeling Autechre’s eerie atmospheres is the expansive “Afterlife Drift”. For this piece, the highlight of the album, Cluster Lizard lets the spaciousness of the sound define it. A sense of drama permeates the tribal work of “Stellar” with various interjections of sound coming together to form a vast sonic tapestry. Very reflective, “Biomass of Beauty” brings the album to a quiet conclusion.With “Edge Of The Universe” Cluster Lizard opts for a fully-formed aural universe, one typically not given to such intricate sound design.”
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