Ides Of Gemini at Vacation Vinyl on Monday February 20th, 2012

I am not exactly sure if Ides of Gemini should be classified as metal, it is hard to tell, may be they rather be called post-metal? Their sound is surely dark, and the music focuses on a sinister ambiance all the time, with an overwhelmingly slow delivery and no hope in sight. It is certainly less furious and tumultuous than most metal music I have heard, far less ear-bleeding but much more on the haunting-eerie side of dark-edgy music without losing any intensity.

The trio had a record release party at Vacation Vinyl on Monday night for a split 12-inch with Vermapyre via Magic Bullet Records, and they played a few of their slowly expanding songs in the darkness, with bassist Sera Timms’ ghostly antic-Greek-chorus vocals, J. Bennett’s guitar reverb, and Kelly Johnston’s pounding and lethargic drumming.

 Their first song was like a long march progressing very slowly, with a cold and repetitive solemnity, their second one, still slow and majestic, had a more psychedelic distorted side, and the third one was more tumultuous and violent, starting faster than the other ones but soon catching up and going back to the doom delivery.

 Their windy wintery sound was actually quite cinematic, with occasional brighter sides and many furious episodes, always keeping a melodic line above the distortion thanks to the vocals and back up vocals. They reminded me a little VUM, another band who also played at Vacation Vinyl a little while ago, and who was also fronted by a woman. Ides of Gemini had this timeless exotic element, especially carried by the lament of Timms’ voice, pronouncing all the syllables of the words, and sometimes reaching new highs in explosive screams.

 In 2010, they have self-released a four-song EP, ‘The Disruption Writ’ (http://idesofgemini.bandcamp.com), and they will release soon a full-length debut album ‘Constantinople’ via Neurot Recordings.

 There was still a lot of mystery in their music quite difficult to describe, like a tangent and inexorable fear, not totally exposed but present nevertheless, moving like a martyr (hey, they have a song called Martyrium of the Hippolyt!) going to the scaffold with determination and pride.