Review: TeHÔM - Legacy

Artist: TeHÔM

Album: Legacy

Label: Cyclic Law

Release date: January 2024

Among the artists that helped define the dark ambient genre, few have roots that stretch quite as far back as TeHÔM's. This now-cult ritual ambient project from Croatia has been active in one form or another for more than thirty years, gracing countless European stages through numerous (for dark ambient standards) live performances. Yet for all the project's history and influence, Legacy is only TeHÔM's fourth studio release. Miljenko, the mastermind behind the project, obviously prioritises quality over quantity, and he confirmed as much in our recent interview as well. That, however, makes it all the more important to review his new studio material when it does come out.

As a project that started making ritual ambient back when ritual ambient wasn't even a widespread designator, TeHÔM has always been largely unbound by genre limitations and experimental by default. That spirit remains strongly present on Legacy as well, as Miljenko doesn't hesitate to draw upon a wide range of sonic elements to put on top of the ritualistic, rhythm-and-drone-driven base. From field recordings and spacey synths, over ethereal voices and brass instrumentation, to violins and even traditional folk songs, there's no tool that is too outlandish to be used in channelling TeHÔM's vision. This would usually pose the risk of the resulting material sounding too heterogeneous, but TeHÔM successfully avoids this trap by ensuring everything is dosed to perfection. One of the most impressive qualities of Legacy is how well it creates the sense of space - the listener is truly transported to subterranean caves and underground passages that the music aims to depict. Each drop, pebble and splinter are carefully placed and clearly audible, contributing to a sense of immersion rarely heard on dark ambient albums these days. As a result, Legacy has a sort of raw, uninhibited quality to it that reminds me of the seminal works of the 1990s in the breadth of its approach in constructing the album's atmosphere and flow, relying on dynamics rather than an endless droning loop or a repeating theme to drive each track.

It's difficult to reduce Legacy to a simple description that would encompass its sheer range, since the album pulls of the complex feat of sounding both monumental in the monstrous depths that it reaches and very human and relatable at the same time; I suppose that opposition is at the core of TeHÔM's work to begin with. In any case, it's an approachable, but heavily layered album that reveals more of itself upon every listen and offers a lot of replay value. I just hope we won't have to replay it for another ten years before the next one comes out.

Rating: 9/10