STAR OF ASH – The Thread

Star Of Ash is a side project of Heidi Solberg Tveitan (a.k.a. Ihriel), who is also known for her work with experimental Metal act Peccatum. The Thread is the latest Star Of Ash disc, following Iter.Vator, which came out in 2002.

If you’re a music fan who likes their music hard and heavy you can stop reading this review now, as The Thread is neither hard nor heavy; it’s more of an ambient album, creating an atmospheric soundscape out of strings and classical instrumentation, pianos, ambient sounds, spoken words, choral passages, and every once in a while, sung lyrics. The Thread almost seems more like a soundtrack to a dreamlike arthouse movie than a traditional album.

Still, if you’re into Melodic Atmospheric Music with lots of mood (or just want to hear something a bit different), The Thread is fairly good at what it does: the songs are well-constructed and performed, with good melodies and arrangements. There’s usually a lot going on in the background of each track, so you’ll get a bit more out of the album each time you hear it.

The Thread is one of those albums that some will find brilliant, while others will find too pretentious and artsy-fartsy. While the disc does seem to be a bit too full of itself at times, it does remain mostly accessible to the general listening audience; whether they actually end up liking it is another thing entirely. The Thread practically screams – okay, forcefully whispers – “Pay attention! This is art!”

So while there’s nothing really wrong with The Thread – a bit of culture never hurt anyone – it does share a common problem with other ambiance-enhanced albums: it’s a bit dull. You can put this album on and five minutes later not even be aware you’re actually listening to music, so determined is Star Of Ash to stay buried in the background. The album comes to life a bit towards the end with songs like “Crossing Over,” but for the most part entire chunks of The Thread pass by with hardly any fanfare.

The Thread is a decent, well-produced album of ambient music, but it might be a bit too sleepy for some listeners. Fans of this kind of artsy musical expression will probably like it though, as it has atmosphere to spare.