At the end of 2011 I was quite impressed with ‘To No Avail’ by the American band Surachai. And all of a sudden the digital download of the new album ‘Embraced’ drops on my digital doormat. Extremely curious as to what it would bring I downloaded it and played it, at full volume, via my home entertainment centre. Of course, I wanted my neighbours to also enjoy it. Opener ‘Ancestral’ continues where the previous album left off, so, a mix of Deafheaven, Krallice and Deathspell Omega. ‘Sentinel’ continues in the same vein. Closer ‘Surrender’ starts totally different I a more noise/industrial style but after two minutes it flips back to the sound we got accustomed to only to be interspersed with noise/industrial passages from time to time.
All together the three songs clock in at a little over forty minutes and don’t tend to bore for a single second. ‘Embraced’ has turned into a great album. End of year list material this album certainly is. It can be recommended to anyone who wants their black metal differently, especially more modern, but not less good. Think of the black metal that is programmed by a festival such as Roadburn. 88/100
– Lords of Metal
It’s a rare treat to experience an artist evolve. Either the process is hidden or the audience’s interest dwindles along the way. But, I’ve enjoyed the distinct honor of watching Surachai grow and evolve since first discovering him in Chicago several years back, especially through his last 3 full length albums. “To No Avail†and “Plague Diagram†were both mentioned here with nothing but praise and the same is now true for his newest effort, “Embracedâ€.
“Embraced†is the first Surachai record to utilize a full band, while still written entirely by Surachai himself. The results are, in a word, astounding. Featuring members of Nachtmystium, Nine Inch Nails, Guzzlemug, and more, the ideas and concepts from the mind of Surachai are expressed through a numerous set of minds and talents, the resulting outcome is a supremely robust and more fully evolved sound than the previous records. Next to Surachai’s vocals, the drums are probably the most stand out element on the record for me, followed closely by the ambient and sound design from the ever remarkable Richard Devine. But, the guitars and bass and synths are not overshadowed or lost in the shuffle, to be certain.
– Grindthieves
Nick Liberatore aka royb0t reinterpreted Caspar Newbolt’s Embraced artwork. Gorgeous!
– http://bzzrk.tumblr.com
– royb0t
Location:Chicago, IL
Subgenre: Progressive Black Metal
Given metal’s obsession with technique, it seems a little strange that the genre’s instrumental lexicon is more or less static these days. Then again, most of the low-hanging fruit has already been plucked; metal’s been around for 40-odd years, and virtuoso musicians have been pushing its technical boundaries for roughly 30 of those years. Surachai’s new album, Embraced, is exciting in part because it employs unconventional means to heave those boundaries a little further out. Main man Surachai Sutthisasanakul draws on European-classical composer’s tricks for his tangled guitar schema, and drummer Charlie Werber (also of the bizarre noise/prog act Guzzlemug) conjures up an insectile churn that’s unlike anything I’ve ever heard before. Even more exciting than these innovations is the fact that when you listen to “Sentinel,†you don’t hear the esoteric details. You hear flowing, melodic black metal, as organic and natural as breath. Rarely can a metal act thrill both the mind and the soul as this band does. Spin the full album on Surachai’s Bandcamp. [Trash Audio] –DM
– Stereogum
Chicago metal outfit Surachai takes the tremolo picking and blast beats of black metal, and intensifies them with great interplay, an atomspheric recording, and anthemic melodies. The band is pretty ambitious when it comes to song lengths as well, breaching the 15-minute mark on the opening track of their new album, Embraced.
I could see fans of Litury and Krallice getting into this pretty easily, but don’t be surprised if you find Surachai’s compositions to have a bit more flow. I think most people will be pretty impressed with the detail and quality of the recording on this three-track affair as well, which is a process that is explained in detail right here. Enjoy!
– The Needle Drop
Progressive Ambient Black Metal (third album by the ambitious experimental ambient/drone metal project of Chicago’s Surachai Sutthisasanakul who usually does everything himself but this time has some great guest collaborators. This music is some of the most powerful and hypnoptic stuff we’ve ever heard.)
– Prog Metal Zone
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
When I recently heard the name Surachai, I immediately thought it could be some kind of a stoner/doom band. The human brain makes these weird associations sometimes and mine just threw me the Snailking demo cover in front of my eyes, for no logical reason whatsoever. So, to my surprise, this is nothing like what I was expecting – this is not even a band, this is a one-man project by Surachai Sutthisasanakul, a producer based in Chicago who mashes the gloomy black metal roots with the heartless pulsation of synthesizers. The surroundings are nothing but bleak and atmospheric and, of course, the reverberation could not miss this reunion. For his third album, Embraced, he adds the drummer Charlie Werber (Guzzlemug) to this equation and you can check the result below, with the track Sentinel.
– Full Article
It’s what you are not going to hear on the new SURACHAI album Embraced that makes it special. You will not hear formulaic black metal; instead you will hear music that incorporates many different genres in an organic way to create something original and engaging!
– CVLT Nation
Embraced sounds richer than your average bedroom black metal record. Surachai layers samples with guitar and various electronic effects to create an almost symphonic atmosphere. That mix is perfected by some of the most intricate black metal drumming I’ve heard since Cobalt’s Gin, courtesy of guest drummer Charlie Werber of Guzzlemug. That percussion absolutely makes the record whole. The magic of Surachai is his ability to make soothing music out of so much abrasive noise..
– Full Article
Also they are streaming Sentinel, the second track on Embraced.
Unusual creative processes such as Surachai’s have produced genius-level black metal, but they’ve also given us the kind of irritating pomposity that Velvet Cacoon’s “dieselharp†hoax skewered so artfully in the mid-aughts. Embraced fortunately avoids the latter. The compositions wriggle through transparently American contortions, but their motion is fluid rather than jerky.
This curious sense of smoothness comes largely from Guzzlemug drummer Charlie Werber, whose playing is Embraced’s most outstanding feature. I asked that IO stream “Sentinel†because it’s the best showcase for his unconventional style. Werber’s strokes-per-minute count is way up there with the master blasters, but the way he uses all of those notes is utterly different; instead of mapping onto a staccato grid, they blend together into a dizzying swirl that breathes as it seethes. When I first heard the term “burst beat,†I imagined a sound like this one, though Liturgy drummer Greg Fox never came close to executing the idea convincingly. Werber is a different story, and I’ve never heard anything quite like it.
– Full Article and Sentinel Stream
