Viii: Selenotrope - Smoky Gold

<div class='description'><p>Gatefold double LP (smokey gold vinyl), padded inner sleeve, and protection sleeve. Only a very few original metal acts emerge each decade from the mass of bands that are stylistically easy to label. BOTANIST are both in musical and lyrical aspects one of those unique bands that are obviously different. Now, the act's eleventh full-length, "VIII: Selenotrope" is announced. On the eighth solo album by the project, and the first since "VI: Flora" (2014), mastermind Otrebor again sends sprigs into new sonic directions. Although the band's roots in black metal still shimmer through the dense foliage, this sprawling, straggling, blooming creation is an exuberantly growing, varied musical meditation. "The title "VIII: Selenotrope" refers to plants that flower in moonlight. BOTANIST's characteristic sound of the hammered dulcimer combines perfectly with now predominantly clean vocals that are often arranged into multi-layered choirs, resulting in an entangling, highly dynamic album that comes together in a singular piece of music seemingly taking influence from all avant-garde, progressive, experimental, post-metal, and other possible descriptions - the validity of which very much depends on each individual listener. "VIII: Selenotrope" is not made to fit into just one drawer." All songs of this project are told from the perspective of a protagonist called "The Botanist". He is characterised as a crazed man of science that lives in self-imposed exile, as