Album Review: Ansiktsløs – Sideworlds

Artist: Ansiktsløs
Title: Sideworlds
Label: Cyclic Law
Release date: March 28th, 2025
Country: USA
Format reviewed: High-quality digital recording

Album Review: Ansiktsløs – Sideworlds Part 1 via Cyclic Law by Pegah

“Sideworlds” is the official debut release from Ansiktsløs (faceless), by Robert Kozletski, also known for his work in Apocryphos and Psychomanteum. According to Bandcamp, “this album is a meditation on the final cycle of humanity, capturing the weight of solitude, erosion, and detachment from the modern world”. These themes are echoed in the cover art as well: the framing with columns, mirrored figures, and ornamental flourishes recalls old occult manuscripts or alchemical engravings, evoking the image of a ritualistic gateway. At the center lies a medieval-styled vignette—perhaps a figure in despair or contemplation among ruins and overgrowth—resonating with the album’s meditations on grief, isolation, and metaphysical wandering. The mirrored, robed figures holding staffs, along with the spirals inscribed SIDEWORLDS and its reversed reflection SDLROEWDIS, emphasize the motif of crossing thresholds into mirror-worlds and distorted realities.

The album opens with a low, glacial drone that slowly emerges, cold and vast, like nightfall spreading its veil across the landscape. In “Nightwatcher,” the soundscape grows louder and more unsettling, as though something ominous is about to manifest. “It Reveals” unfolds with patient, steady tones, its progression suggesting the slow approach of a revelation. As the track advances, it feels as if another world is surfacing—perhaps an inner world offering escape from the one we are bound to. “Bonfire Clairvoyance” begins with whispers within the darkness, gradually rising in intensity until they transform into distorted, monstrous voices. The atmosphere becomes oppressive, ritualistic, and otherworldly, as though preparing the listener for a crossing into the Sideworld itself.

“Sideworld Sickness” with shifts in frequency, suggesting the intervention of another power. The track carries the sensation of stepping across a threshold into another world. Snatches of radio static and shifting frequencies pull the listener in and out of distorted realities, as if unseen voices are attempting to manipulate the perception. “Metaphysica Morum,” a collaboration with dark ambient artist Phragments, unfolds as a vast, immersive soundscape that heightens the sense of detachment from reality. It conjures the feeling of drifting through a void that swallows time, space, and even being—an experience at once infinite and suffocating. “Dressing the Dead in Darkmoors” rises with spectral voices, steeped in ritual intent. It carries the weight of a ceremonial offering to the departed, enveloping the listener in a shrouded atmosphere of mystery and reverence…

To be continued…

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