Review: Adoran - Children Of Mars

Like a volcano about to blow, the opening of Children Of Mars stirs with low frequency tremor and cymbal moan. A slow groove emerges like a hairline fracture running jaggedly through humming stone, the split widening as Aidan Baker strikes his drums ever harder. Gradually Adoran fulfil their own prophecy of violent vibration and fracturing impact, forcing upward through the mantle of the earth until a bass drone yawns open, prising apart stereo space and forcing my headphones to double-back on themselves, growing into a fountain of panoramic whirr, percussive crack and reverb-smog. From the moment the album begins, there is a nascent inevitability to its path of progress. All of the energy exerted during those crescendos resides in the purrs of pressure that rouse throughout the opening minute, destined to push itself up and out.

If I peer into the haze of echo (which seems to place Adoran at the centre of a monolithic aircraft hangar, multiplying their sound by ten), I can hear the cyclical nature of the energy exchange. Baker’s rhythms and frenetic improvisations ride the bass like an undulating hillside. In turn, Williamson’s stream of hum gushes over the beats, subtly (very subtly) empathetic to fluctuations in speed and volume. The feedback loop of rhythm and tone burns itself into my head, like staring into an eclipse until a hollow circle burdens my every blink. They are inseparable and yet immediately divisible; cogs that establish unity by polarising their direction rotation. Impact and continuum. Pure tone and its cold absence.