Charnia – Dageraad
Charnia's debut album Dageraad is like a fog—thick, comforting and sometimes hard to breathe
I’ve been sitting on this review for months and months, because even if you’ve been writing almost every single day of your life for the past three or four years sometimes you encounter things that are not only hard to put in words, but also generally hard to personally assimilate in order to describe or retell. The debut Charnia album was published back in September by Belgium’s Consouling Sounds (probably best-known as the home for most things Church of Ra plus a bunch of other rad stuff as Caudal, Year of No Light and etc.)
Leaving all obvious references and comparisons behind, Dageraad is like a big black hole in the small and neat country of Belgium. Charnia’s music is contemplative, spacey, but all this achieved through the crafty, almost organically structured abrassive sound. The album explores melancholic ambiences and through slow build-ups reaches post-metal climaxes. You’ve surely listened to a lot of music, which is able to evoke, if not the same then at least similar emotions. What this album is able to achieve is to manifest a specific state, a result of a very strong personal interpretation of the world and of course showcase perfect musicianship.
Dageraad is not a groundbreaking album. Dageraad is dark, thick but comforting in the same time. Just like the Belgian fog in November. There’s not too much to analyze here, because I find feeling it the most appropriate thing to do with this record as its powerful as a whole and not when sliced into bits and pieces. Another great thing about this album is that it’s existing in a place where not many bands are able to be convincing—on the very border between being sad, negative and maybe even defeated. Balancing between those is definitely harder than just tuning as low as possible and playing as dark as possible. So not big, but huge ups for Charnia for being able to exist and create in such a complex realm.
