This won’t happen, but the vinyl (or even CD) version of Perigea Antahkarana should come with a sticker stating “For patient people only.” As in, you’re going to have wait for a good idea, then wait some more, take the dog for a walk while leaving the thing going (which DR did), and hope to sift through Wolvserpent’s difficult concoction of black, drone, noise, post-whatever with some semblance of an idea of what’s going on. And frankly, the song lengths aren’t the issue: It’s the utter lack of memorable moments that does this album in.
The competent trudge of “Within the Lights of Fire” (the album’s most guitar-based number) was at least, an ample start. While not crossing the funeral doom border, “Within the Lights of Fire” engages in the slow and turgid lurch so associated with that sound, so it wasn’t much of a surprise that the song stayed at home with its original tempo. The 21-minute “In Mirrors of Water” is where the band’s supposed knack for classical instrumentation and crescendos come into play, but it only conjoins with a relatively harmless, necro black metal adventure that is basement-variety, if anything.
Further developments of this kind take place on “A Breath in the Shade of Time,” but by then, DR is not quite sure who can muster up the strength and attention to wade through more meandering drones, supposedly “enthralling” instrumentation and more. Perigea Antahkarana is essentially a bottomless pit of underdeveloped ideas; one poor combination after the next, which translates to an exhausting, boring listen.