The man behind Sun of the Blind, Zhaaral, is a member of the mighty Darkspace trio, so for those MA readers who found that particular band rather forbidding and abstract, this SotB project might be a more accessible and melodic substitute for that act. It's true that aspects of SotB's music may resemble Darkspace and another linked project, Paysage d'Hiver, especially in the way keyboard tones are used to create a certain atmosphere in parts, but SotB is very much its own boss with a purpose and determination to spare. This is demonstrated all the way through in Skullreader: the sound is much warmer, inviting and hynotic than it is with Darkspace, the music more structured and grandiose, and it all sounds as if Zhaaral gave it everything he had almost to the point of killing himself through exhaustion and sacrifice. In the process though the black metal element does shrink almost to little more than croaking vocals crying out against a barrage of synthesiser and guitar, and only Zhaaral's skill as an all-runder keeps the album together as it travels all the way to the end.Cursed Universe leads the way energetically with a positive determination: the drumming is varied and the various instruments and effects surge forward in a lively manner. Lord of Mind is a more introverted beast, dark in mood, solemn yet majestic and like its forerunner quite varied in melody and pace. It's monumental as well, the music epic and dramatic, the playing whether of raw guitar riffs and melodies or of cold keyboard tones seeming more outstanding than it actually may be. There are vocals but they tend to be a minor element in the whole edifice. As the album progresses, some of the early energy is lost and the music settles down to mid-tempo which is maintained for the rest of the album. It's as if SotB quickly forget that this is basically a black metal album, the black metal becoming merely the earthbound escape hatch from which the music quickly heads off into the realms of interstellar prog-rock opera soundtracks. Only the BM vocals that appear on the songs - and sometimes just for the first few minutes of a long track - provide a link to black metal and even then they are in danger of being swept away or buried under layers of guitar, synthesiser and electronic effects.We keep going with Ornaments which is a lavish piece with lots of silvery synth lines, plodding percussion and plenty of background ambient effects including some steely industrial grinding noises but the energy and zest the album started with are distinctly flagging. The effort put into building up these songs with layer upon layer of fuzz and melody into epic works is stretching our man Zhaaral a lot. I'm hoping outro track Vanitas might reclaim some of the early liveliness that made this album so promising but unfortunately this doesn't happen. Frosty synthesiser structures loom early on in the track, followed by crunchy guitar riffs and melodies and more mid-paced uninspired drumming, all to collapse into a mysterious murky and dank atmosphere. Well, we did plunge back to Earth it seems but not quite where I hoped.Skullreader might have worked better if there'd been more black metal prominent in the mix throughout the album at the expense of some of the keyboard-generated music. True, the black metal rhythms are present and they are rough and buzzy but there is also a lot of smooth string and ivory work that smother them over. Much of the keyboard work tends to sound the same - it's either cold, pure, round winter tones or wavy bland synth oozings that sound very 1970's - so it often seems less inspired than it should be or Zhaaral had intended, and the album steers dangerously close to the territory of the rotating silver reflecting mirror ball: the one thing that used to inspire panic and terror into the hearts of metal-minded maniacs before they realised they could turn programmed rhythm structures to their own advantage. As it is, the mixed BM \u002F Euro-disco music of (V.E.G.A.) springs to mind and there are parts where, yes, there are similarities between SotB and that band though (V.E.G.A.) is harder-edged due to that act's preoccupation with the effects of drug abuse. The pace doesn't change much after the first couple of tracks so there are moments where I wonder whether the music is going too quickly in parts where it should be slow, mysterious and sinister, and going too slowly in parts where aggression and outright fury are called for. At least Zhaaral's talent as a musician and his vision and belief in this project keep the music focussed on the straight and narrow so that though it verges on self-indulgence, it never gets too absorbed in its own grandeur and ends up in a black hole. Or maybe it does end up in a black hole but in a cosmic one.Black metal fusions with space ambient prog and post-rock can be great music if musicians can remember to keep as much actual black metal, not just the singing style, upfront in the mix as they can afford so for listeners at least the whole work sounds balanced between the two styles. I get the feeling that at times Zhaaral might have got carried away with the soaring lead guitar breaks and skyward synthesiser, and neglected the BM rhythms. It probably wouldn't hurt if he could adopt something of Darkspace's noise-blasting approach with the flailing mechanical percussion as a counterpoint to the melodic bombast. The old Bible story about building your house on a secure foundation so that whatever kind of structure, no matter how big, extravagant or complex, you create won't topple over instead of building that house on sand comes to mind.