Review from Dead Rheteric

March 16, 2019
From: Dead Rheteric
Published: March 6, 2019

Everyone’s favorite caveat to ‘atmospheric black metal’: depressive black metal.

I stumbled onto NONE thanks to their first album, 2017’s self-titled NONE, largely thanks to its album cover: a fog-drenched and snowed-over oblivion, presumably somewhere in the Pacific Northwest (the band hails from Portland, Oregon). Its three tracks are a dense foray into the miserable, a proper sonic accompaniment to the album’s cover art. I found out not long after from the label that a follow up was not only in the works but would see the light of day soon.

Enter Life Has Gone On Long Enough.

In truth I missed the album release at first and several months went by before it hit my radar. Having separated from almost every form of social media, while I still keep abreast of most things, others will occasionally slip through the cracks. This album was one such victim. So it was on a humid, sticky August afternoon that I re-stumbled upon the band and thought to myself “oh god!”. Once again a stark image from likely somewhere in the remote regions of the Pacific Northwest invite the eyes to soak in misery and isolation. Life Has Gone On Long Enough embodies that isolation without fail.

Much like the self-titled, the pace here is dirge-like. Synth remains an integral part of the experience but without being kitschy, the atmosphere here is frequently suffocating. A look at the song titles tells you exactly what you’re in for: “A World, Dead and Gray”, “Life Is Long Enough”, and “Hypoxic”. This album is the sound of a funeral a week before Christmas, a barren landscape within and without its participants. It isn’t always sonically heavy nor does it always need to be. The ‘softer’ elements are no less emotionally throttling without oceans of distortion around them.
There is no pretense and there are also no real slivers of light to pierce the gray: Life Has Gone On Long Enough is the definition of mood music. It will not fit all seasons or situations and is best approached when it can be appreciated.

Unlike a great many depressive black albums of old, the sound here is robust. Everything is audible and everything carries weight. Unsurprisingly, vocals are a key part of the experience here, particularly on “Bed The Cold Earth” and “Desiderate”, the latter of which is outright devastating in its second half. Closing out the album is a cover of Burzum’s “Illa Tiðandi”. While lifted from a maligned era of the Burzum canon, thematically it fits right in and ends a bleak experience with a bleaker sense of finality. It’s fitting.

Following this up (and again I was behind the curve) was the release of the ‘single’ “Where Life Should Be…”. Composed of all of the same blocks that make up all of the Life Has Gone On Long Enough experience, it adds a couple new ones: the expression of panic and anxiety through blast beats.

Shocking not for how well it works but in that it finally made an appearance within NONE’s work. Hopefully it’s indicative of where things are going forward. “Where Life Should Be…” is dynamic in ways that Life Has Gone On Long Enough doesn’t often touch upon.

Reviewed by: Matthew Bowling
 

Review from Grizzly Butts

November 26, 2018
From: Grizzly Butts
Published: November 25, 2018

Portland, Oregon atmospheric/depressive black metal duo None have an exceptional sense of ‘depth’ within sonic landscape; The best proof of this is in the guitar tones and layering therein where the scraping buzz of distortion never outshines or grates upon the listener. For music appearing as personal expression and release the expected value is a pointed but not exploitative catharsis. ‘Life Has Gone On Long Enough’ wrings ...

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Review from Cadaver Garden

November 26, 2018
From: Cadaver Garden
Published: November 25, 2018

Through eight tracks of soul crushing melancholy, NONE creates an ultimately devastating sound that wraps you up in dismal hymns. Life Has Gone On Long Enough is pure depressive black metal in its most raw and powerful form as it provides you with track after track of bone chilling black metal. From beginning to end you are subject to the cold and ever biting atmospheres that NONE provides only for them to wrap you up in a solemn fo...

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Review from Infernal Masquerade Magazine

August 15, 2018
From: Infernal Masquerade Magazine
Published: July 25, 2018

Making justice to such a bleak title, today we have NONE’s sophomore release. Featuring over 50 minutes of the most demoralizing and gut wrenching music you will ever hear, “Life Has Gone On Long Enough” is a brutally emotional Atmospheric Black Metal release that any fan of Austere, Lifelover, Mortualia, etc. cannot miss.

After a moody opener, “A World, Dead and Gray” kicks off with crushingly dissonant guitars a...

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Review from Sic Maggot Webzine

June 14, 2018
From: Sic Maggot Webzine
Published: June 13, 2018

Česká republika má svoje Nic (nechme teď stranou, že oficiálním názvem kapely je obdélníček) a rozhodně není jedinou zemí, která se může pochlubit metalovou skupinou s takhle nanicovatým názvem. Podobných mutací najdeme v zahraničí více. Metalové archivy, bible a homepage každého metalového (nejen) pisálka, hlásí dvě formace s názvem None. Ta starší mě asi nikdy zajímat nebude, poněvadž jde o n...

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Review from Aristocrazia Webzine

June 11, 2018
From: Aristocrazia Webzine
Published: June 11, 2018

È trascorso un solo anno da quando lo sconosciuto duo di Portland che si cela dietro il nome None pubblicò il proprio debutto eponimo. Oggi lo ritroviamo con "Life Has Gone On Long Enough", una seconda uscita che prosegue il discorso composto da malinconia a tratti cascadiana, respiro depressive e black metal atmosferico degli anni Novanta.

La recensione potrebbe essere brevissima, del resto l'ascolto non si distacca particolarme...

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Review from Noizz Webzine

June 7, 2018
From: Noizz Webzine
Published: June 3, 2018 

Tras su debut el pasado año 2017 con un álbum homónimo rebosante de Black Metal atmosférico y depresivo, los estadounidenses NONE regresan con nuevo material que ahonda más si cabe en su oscura senda. Y lo hacen, una vez más, de la mano del sello canadiense Hypnotic Dirge Records, que ha sido el encargado de poner en la calle este atractivo digipack vestido con fotografías panorámicas que muestran una naturaleza tan desoladora co...

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Review from Metal Purgatory

May 16, 2018
From: Metal Purgatory
Published: May 14, 2018

I do not know what it is about the depressive black metal scene lately but new albums pop up almost daily and a lot of these bands are making some solid releases. One of these bands is Portland, Oregon’s None which blends a unique mix of both atmospheric and depressive black metal. Life Has Gone On Long Enough is the second album by None, released this year through Hypnotic Dirge Records. The album features eight tracks of organic ble...

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Review from The Headbanging Moose

May 16, 2018
From: The Headbanging Moose
Published: May 14, 2018

Written and recorded throughout the latter half of 2017, Life Has Gone On Long Enough, the brand new album by American Atmospheric/Depressive Black Metal entity NONE, takes its haunting shape through eight organic tracks of foggy mountainous atmosphere and bleak music. On this new chapter, NONE delves deeper into the blackest woods to find abandonment, and developing its tortured personality further. Moving in and out like the lon...

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Review from Ave Noctum Webzine

May 16, 2018
From: Ave Noctum Webzine
Published: May 14, 2018

Aint that album title the truth? Well it must feel like that to everyone at some point and None as their name suggests have probably not got the best outlook on life and are here making music and at least, even if it is in a negative respect, doing something worthwhile before they shuffle off this mortal coil. Not that we have any inkling of who the band are, nothing more is known than when they released their debut ‘None’ back i...

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 Released: April 11, 2018
300 Copies
Genre: Depressive Black Metal

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