A concept of ultimate finality doused in cosmological inevitability. A sound of world-building/destroying immensity shrouded in otherworldly dissonance and suffocating atmospherics. Visions of eons ahead, evoking the ultimate fate of matter and as such of existence. All this is the “Abyssgazer”, the immense debut album by Italian atmospheric post-death/doom metal oracle Aphotic. The four piece from northern Italy which features current and past members of bands like Fuoco Fatuo, Blasphemer, and Ekpyrosis, has set out to create the ultimate extreme metal clairvoyance into the death of our universe, through an audio, visual and conceptual experience of unparalleled evocative power. According to the eschatological tale and astrophysical prediction, the most absolute Omega possibly conceivable will materialize as aeons ahead, on timescales almost impossible to imagine, an inexorably inflating universe made only of exhausted and degenerate stellar remnants will reap apart the fabric of spacetime itself until matter will start decaying, and even every black hole singularity will be evaporated, due to quantum effects, into radiation emanating in nothingness. And so, as maximum entropy will be reached, time will become meaningless. In this frame, the album title-track reflects on how, in remote times and places, inert matter can shape into living beings, then evolve into sentient creatures who might become able to stare into the unknown and wonder about the true nature of time and space – by gazing into the abyss. The Abyssgazers, will become the self-consciousness of the Universe. Then come the medium: dark, imposing, colossal atmospheric death metal to disintegrate the fabric of perception, reality, and time itself, and to soundtrack the universe’s last vision and final breath. A nebulous, churning cosmic abyss evoking the destruction of worlds through masterful sonic synthesis: the necromancing twisted dark death metal of Incantation and Immolation, the expansive and morphing storytelling of Triptykon, Neurosis, Evoken and Bolzer, and the suffocating coldness and dissonance of Godflesh. And finally, the visuals by Chilean abstract painter Rodrigo Pereira: an otherworldly vision unto the abyss sealing this eschatological journey towards the eons to come. Analog mixing meticulously crafted under the expertise of audio engineer Greg Chandler from Esoteric (Priory Recording Studios, UK) and mastering by Colin Marston from Gorguts etc. (The Thousand Caves Studio, NYC), complete an unheralded debut album of immense, imaginative, consciousness-expanding avant-garde death metal crafted to glorify and reimagine the immensity and inevitability of death far beyond this carnal plain. Label: Nuclear Winter Records