Stellar Master Elite – Hologram Temple


With a name like Stellar Master Elite and an album title like Hologram Temple (Unholy Conspiracy Deathwork), one might expect a band with the sort of melodic death metal pretensions of Scar Symmetry and its ilk. The truth is, this German Blackened Doom outfit ploughs its own furrow, harsh and abrasive, spaced out and ethereal, forlorn and crushing. Hologram Temple also delves into some deeper issues – what’s real? What’s not real? Are we any different from machines? Has the band been reading a lot of Philip K Dick? Can we have sex with fax machines? And so on.

This might sound like a one-way ticket to Pseuds Corner via concept album. Instead, SME has produced a solid and wantonly nasty record which delivers on the Black Metal vileness while making a good fist of its other influences. The opening track, ‘Null’, is a case in point. Its beat and rhythm are simple, but the magic is in all the layers of sound and tempo, coming up with an engaging song that still makes you listen hard to appreciate its depths. It also ushers in the band’s other vibes. Doom and Electronics are worked in with a deft grasp. But is the rest of the album as good?

Track five, ‘The Beast We Have Created’, claims it is, no doubt in the middle of a suicidal cyber blizzard. A simpler, catchier number, it’s the closest to pure Black Metal that the album has to offer, but with still enough groove and bass to the riffs to give it more weight. It’s ending, bleak and dark and northern, is tinged with sinister SFX and a slow pace. It all works so well you forget how difficult it must be to balance it all out.

Equally fierce is ‘Black Hole Dementia’, which is probably the worst Tinder user name ever. It’s also a very good song. “Reality is already half hallucination” the track snarls, as it builds up to a really brutal crescendo, but then slips into an eerie bridge full of slow cosmic horror. It’s a bold move, though some listeners may cry foul, and “anti-climax” too.

And so, there’s a reason the final score isn’t higher. Well, in fact, two. The first is that the album doesn’t quite have the consistency needed to make it as good as it could be. Second, there are a few too many keyboard/instrumental sections, which sound a lot like filler. That is not to say, that they don’t always work – the drawn-out final track ‘Blood Vortex’ drips with menace, for example. But again, it’s about finding the right balance which, when achieved, makes this album work rather well, but deserts it at the worst of times.

6 / 10

ALEXANDER HAY