Absence

Mesarthim's "Absence" sports not only one of the strangest album titles of the year but also perhaps it's grandest, most-sweeping melodies. What we have here is atmospheric black metal of the space kind at the pinnacle of the form - it's loaded to the brim with lush keyboards that paint awestruck pictures of distant galaxies. But the album, a missive from an ultimately doomed probe into the farthest reaches of the universe, also bears a heavy heart