Aeoga is a dark ambient project of the Helixes musical collective from Finland, which also harbours I.Corax, Halo Manash, Zoät-Aon and Arktau Eos. The ambient of the Helixes group is more chaotic and intense than most traditional dark ambient. It's clear that Aeoga follows suit, but this album also has elements of its own. The atmosphere is more industrial than I.Corax's, and less intense and rhythmic than is the case with Halo Manash. As the other releases of the collective, Zenith Beyond the Helix-Locus has an original layout. The CD comes in a 7" sleeve, which is embellished with a picture of the bandmembers in ritual garb, meditative drawings, and obscure texts such as: "In the inmost origo the myriad patterns carry the trifold speculums. Fathomless immaterial peregrination."

Zenith... is a sound-wall of rusty metal, a building about to collapse, a scream in the emptiness. This album contains over an hour of raw dark ambient with a plethora of industrial sounds. There's squeaks, grinds, and groans, and here and there some percussion can be heard. There are also many drone-like melodic elements, which keeps the album from getting stale. It is the manifold sounds that make Helixes music so unique, and they bring out the raw, empty darkness very well.

This is a well done, varied, dark CD. Fans of Helixes can buy this album blindly, but it is also recommended to more general lovers of (dark) ambient music. It's well worth it to give Aeoga's unique sound a shot.

D.M.K.