Anchor & Burden - Afterglow

Anchor & Burden – Afterglow

As a follower of the talented Mr. Marcus Reuter, I was delighted to have an opportunity to hear how he fits into yet another musical configuration. Anchor and Burden are a difficult band to describe, so I will allow them to do the honours. According to their own website, they are a “progressive avant-garde doom-jazz post-metal group”, and their new album, Afterglow, is the “aftermath of the devastating Extinction Level album”. Honestly, I couldn’t have said it better myself. Reuter (Touch guitar and soundscapes) and bandmates Alexander Paul Dowerk (Touch guitar), Bernhard Wostheinrich (Keyboards & electronics) and Asaf Sirkis (Drums & percussion) create some of the most challenging music you will ever hear. The band themselves describe their approach as “collective instant composition”. The results vary from beautiful to terrifying with stops pretty much everywhere along the way.

Afterglow is an incredibly short album (thirty one minutes) comprised of four longish compositions. Shards Of Death opens the proceedings, and the title does an exemplary job of setting expectations. Dark minor key chords and compressed lead guitars unravel over electronic soundscapes that embrace the darkness. There are no discernible rhythm or drum patterns, per se; rather, the percussion seems random, bursting out at moments like a surprise attack, deadly and effective. The shimmering backdrops are haunting, straight out of some horror movie soundtrack. Much of the lead guitar owes a tremendous debt to Robert Fripp in both tone and angularity. Unlike one of Reuter’s other bands, Tu-Ner, Anchor and Burden drop any songwriterly pretensions. The sound is all feel and emotion with no noticeable structure, meandering from navy blue to black and back again. Over repeated listens, I found it easier to latch on to a specific instrument rather than absorb the whole at one time.

Not significantly different from its predecessor, Morgentod puts the keys more upfront than before. There are fleeting moments of a solid, recognizable drum pattern which are ultimately subsumed into the void. The Touch guitars act as a black hole which draw anything close to them into their pull. As a result, the music is disorienting. As your ears strain for a rhythm or a hook, chaos swirls around them. Behind the Veil is a war between fuzzed out and chiming guitars which plays out on a field of drum fills coupled with arbitrary moments of framework. At the centre is the spirit of Robert Fripp at his hallucinogenic best. If there is a time signature anywhere on this album, it will take someone savvier and with much more patience than I to unearth it.

So far, there is not much to differentiate one piece from another. Until, that is, Crystal Cabin closes out the album. Finally, enough structure emerges that you could believe there is something akin to a traditional song format here. The two guitars engage one another in a manner that is simultaneously tentative and emotional. The keys and percussion aren’t even audible until halfway through the song, yet even then they are barely noticeable, remaining firmly in the background. The interplay between Reuter and Dowerk is practically telepathic. If this wasn’t fully composed, it had to have been at the very least seems thought out ahead of time. There are, nevertheless, sections which come across as pointless noodling or grandstanding, and yet I find myself wishing the rest of the album had this sense of cohesion.

Afterglow is a difficult album to recommend to the general listening public. Anchor and Burden are four incredibly talented musicians performing music that is incredibly difficult to digest. The album requires a lot of the listener, not the least of which is a mind open to new adventures and untraditional approaches. It is completely intriguing, but your enjoyment mileage may vary. If you are drawn to, as the band describes it, the creation of “monolithic doom behemoths” which are then summarily torn “into shreds with boundless energy in the next moment”, this is for you. If you are looking for easy listening background music for a Sunday afternoon, this is not your thing. You have been warned.

TRACK LISTING
01. Shards Of Death (11:33)
02. Morgentod (5:13)
03. Behind The Veil (7:26)
04. Crystal Cabin (7:17)

Total Time – 31:29

MUSICIANS
Marcus Reuter – Touch Guitar AU8 & S8, Soundscapes
Alexander Paul Dowerk – Touch Guitar S8
Bernhard Wostheinrich – Keyboards, Electronics
Asaf Sirkis – Drums, Percussion

ADDITIONAL INFO
Record Label: Iapetus
Country of Origin: Germany
Date of Release: 30th August 2024

LINKS
Anchor & Burden – Website | Facebook | Bandcamp | YouTube | X | Instagram