Bandcamp Arbor means tree, and the whole of wazzara’s third album grows from that image: the cover is a single tree reaching up and rooting down inside an almond of light, alchemical symbols hanging off its branches, and the music underneath is about the same cycles of water, nature and transformation. Wazzara began a decade ago as the solo vehicle of Barbara Brawand, once the voice of the Swiss folk-gothic band Caladmor, and has grown into a full doomgaze outfit, blending atmospheric black metal’s density, blackgaze’s melody and doom’s weight. Self-released and recorded across home studios and a Romanian room, it is an ambitious, personal record, and its best moments are genuinely lovely.
The reason to hear it is Brawand. Her voice is the throughline, capable of floating clean and ethereal over a wide reverberant space or hardening into a rasp when the wall arrives, and it gives the record an emotional centre that a lot of atmospheric black metal, buried in its own fog, never finds. “Indigo Sleep” is the clearest showcase and the album’s high point: the drums sit organic and unforced, the snare with a woody, natural character, the guitars broad and harmonically saturated but keeping their chords legible, and Brawand riding the whole thing with real presence. The eight-minute closer “zessa (reborn)” is the other one that works, warm and spacious with the master finally leaving the transients room to breathe, a genuinely atmospheric piece that earns its length.
Where Arbor loses some of its magic is in the production, and it is a consistent issue. Too many of the heavy sections are pushed into a dense, over-compressed wall, and the drums frequently read as triggered and sterile, a hard click on the kick with no real body behind it, a snare thinned out in the stacking. “Her Ashes Down the River” and “Dandelion” suffer most, the guitars digitally saturated and noise-gated so aggressively they become texture rather than notes, the bass dissolving entirely into synth. On a record this concerned with the organic, the natural, the growing thing, the clinical modern sheen fights the material. The two tracks that breathe are the two that prove how good the rest could have sounded.
Arbor is a heartfelt, atmospheric, well-sung record from a project with a clear vision and a rare voice at its centre, and doomgaze fans, especially anyone who lives in the Alcest and Lantlôs corner, will find a lot to sink into. It is let down not by the writing or the performances but by a mix that over-polishes music that wanted to sound like weather. When wazzara trust space over density, as on “Indigo Sleep,” they are quietly excellent. A lighter hand at the desk next time, and the whole thing would bloom.
Atmospheric doomgaze led by Barbara Brawand’s striking voice, blending atmospheric black density, blackgaze melody and doom weight. Brawand is the throughline, floating clean and ethereal over wide reverberant space then hardening to a rasp at the wall. “Indigo Sleep” is the high point: organic unforced drums, a woody natural snare, broad harmonically saturated guitars that keep their chords legible, the vocal riding with real presence. The closer “zessa (reborn)” is the other keeper, warm and spacious with the master leaving the transients room. The recurring flaw is the production: too many heavy sections push into a dense over-compressed wall, the drums frequently triggered and sterile, a hard click with no body, and on “Her Ashes Down the River” and “Dandelion” the guitars are noise-gated so hard they become texture rather than notes while the bass dissolves into synth. On a record this concerned with the organic, the clinical sheen fights the material. Heartfelt and well-sung, quietly excellent when it trusts space, over-polished when it doesn’t.
Standout tracks: Indigo Sleep, zessa (reborn), Nova
