Vortex are a solo project from Germany that has had music reviewed before in this zine and on this recording plays a cinematic mixture of dark ambient, drone and ritual and this is a review of his 2020 album "Helioz" which was released by Cyclic Law.
Atmospheric sounding drones start off the album along with some electric guitars a few seconds alter which also adds a metal influence onto the recording. Dark ambient style synths are also a very huge part of the recording along with the music also bringing in a great amount of cinematic orientated soundscapes.
At times the music also gets very atmospheric sounding along with the percussion also giving the music more of a ritualistic feeling when they are utilized. Spoken word parts can also be heard in some parts of the album along with some tracks also adding in a small amount of female vocals.
Some of the tracks are also very long and epic in length along with one track also introducing melodic yet ritualistic chanting into the music. Ethnic style instruments can also be heard in some parts of the recording as well as each song also sounding very different from each other, one of the later songs is also an instrumental and as the album progresses guitar leads and throat singing can also be heard briefly and towards the end a small amount of acoustic guitars can also be heard. The production sounds very dark while the lyrics cover the solar mythology of Egypt, Persia, Rome, Japan along and their histories and culture.
In my opinion this is another great sounding recording from Vortex and if you are a fan of dark ambient, drone and ritual, you should check out this album. RECOMMENDED TRACKS INCLUDE "Helioz-The Well" "The Sun Wheel" "Mithras" and "A Silver Ring". 8 out of 10.
