Published by Alessandro Violante on August 21, 2025
In our music scene, some albums play the role of keeping alive defined music styles, some others define new ones, and some others simply refuse to follow any specific rule, simply focusing on building an experience.
The Allegorist new release From Birth Until Death, released on 25th July on vinyl and digital on its label Awaken Chronicles, and mastered by Daniele Antezza at Dadub Mastering, undoubtedly belongs to the last category. Anna Jordan has worked for six long years to create a release refusing to be encapsulated in any style or trend, and that’s what a reviewer likes to listen the most to.
Many words have been written about this deeply complex release, but what’s most important for us is its experiential character. Quoting the release notes, From Birth Until Death is a metaphor of life cycle, from birth to death, inspired by the Andean mythology of the condor, considered a symbol of immortality. It’s not by chance that the opener title is Birth, and that the closing song title is Death. Between these two songs, we have five other meditative outputs, including its best ones.
The choice of releasing its music on its own label is probably the best one, so that the artist doesn’t need to adapt its style to that of another label. We’ve talked about From Birth Until Death in terms of experience, journey and immersion. That’s what the artist exactly wanted to do, and this can be felt since the first seconds of the opener Birth.
Here, in the shortest song of the release, we already find most of the trademarks characterizing the whole release: cold ambient music with heavy deep dark atmospheres, and multiple processed beats layers. First come the little birds sounds (a metaphor of birth), then obscurity arrives with its slow funereal beats, then beautifully crafted processed beats are introduced, creating a dichotomy between dark ambient and icy dark techno.
We find the same “progressive” development in the following Momentum, which starts from the opener and further develops what listened before. Here we have darker atmosphere, more pronounced dark synth lines, and slow techno beats enriched by more articulated beats causing once again that feeling of dialoguing between beats layers that we find in the whole release. Momentum also introduces the artist ethereal vocals, another key trademark of the artist music.
The following Fata Morgana is, once again, a further progression of what listened in the previous song: in its almost 8 minutes of length, we listen to the processed techno beats alternated to more ethereal sections with the artist ethereal vocals. Here the vocals become a main element of the release. That’s one of the finest moments of this release, having many layers and many particulsr sounds and beats. It’s very difficult to describe with words the so well crafted sonic world created by the artist with huge “songwriting” skills.
The following shorter In My Blood introduces melancholic synth sounds, while its elements remain the same found ib the previous songs. The title track is the longest song, another progressive output starting with a dark ambient atmosphere, slowly introducing processed techno beats. Its soul and proggression is quite similar to that of Fata Morgana.
The following Andean Condor is the most dark techno song of the release, in which a great weight is given to the 4/4 processed beats, without forgetting all the elements listened before. The ending song Death is the most ambient-like one, dominated by dark synth sounds.
From Birth Until Death crearly shows the great songwriting skills of The Allegorist, and what it means, in terms of results, to work for six years on a release. The richness of sounds and of layers, the progression between each song and inside the songs themselves, the quality of processed beats and found processed sounds definitely worth to be listened carefully. The Allegorist has given life to a little great gem which should be listened to everyone in our scene.
Rating: 9.5
Label: Awaken Chronicles