ETCHED HORIZON is the solo project of Brendan Thomas from Kansas City,USA and "Endlessly Levitating in Azure Wonder" is his debut full-length album. On his bandcamp page, the artist claims that the album was inspired by his visit to the cruise metal festival 70 000 Tons of Metal in the beginning of 2023. He describes his style as "cinematic atmospheric Death/Black metal with otherwordly ethereal vibes". So let's see what is hiding behind those words...

The beginning is set by "Dancing Typhoons in Concerts of Grandeur", the track starts with some piano tunes and then evolves into some kind of slow doomish Black/Death metal with strong keyboard presence. It surely sounds progressive with some eerie melodies and the bestial shrieks of Brendan Thomas above everything. "Collapsing Souls Underneath Cascades of Pressure" follows again, this time with more deep Death metal grunts and ghastly keyboard sounds of piano, bells and even some ethereal female voices. This is the longest track of the record lasting more than 6 minutes and you can clearly hear the bass passages that contribute to the gloomy atmosphere of the song.

"The Depths Shall Rumble With Spendor of the Unknown" is next and it starts with a mix of Death metal vocals and atmospheric passages. This track in particular reminds me somehow of the Australian band DISEMBOWELMENT even though not as crushingly heavy. Here we have even more of those eerie female voices. "Affixed Inside a Dream" offers some heavy guitar riffing with rumbling bass at the forefront while "In the Wake of Surreal Wonder" is the first track in this album that demonstrates some attempts for blastbeats mixed with atmospheric keyboard presence and haunting screams. The end of this record comes with "Shadows Withering Through the Glass" which is built in the same pattern as the previous tracks: synth effects, atonal guitars,some aggressive drumming and Brendan Thomas' grunts and screams.

"Endlessly Levitating in Azure Wonder" is an interesting record in case you like your extreme metal to be more experimental and atmospheric. Brendan Thomas' inspiration from the 70 000 Tones of Metal has resulted in an album that is pretty unordinary, no doubt about that. The problem is that all songs sound alike, there is much to be desired in terms of memorability and catchiness. The cover artwork with the ship in the ocean and the sun on the horizon is a good decision. The not-so-good decision is the album production where the balance of the instruments is not properly done (there are moments when the keyboard sound so loud that nothing else can be clearly heard). It's not a bad effort and it has its moments but still there is a great room for improvement.