The alluring debut from Leipzig Germany’s Hyios, Consuetudines offers 7 lengthy compositions of cold ritual drones, arching trajectories, and visceral descents into subterranean caverns, where rich, kinetic textures and deep resonant tones move and morph in a fluid, serpentine fashion, sprinkled with the debris of an ancient culture and something more otherworldly and primordial. Leipzig has historically proven to be fertile ground for dark ambient and Consuetudines continues in the fine tradition set forth by such notable acts as Inade and Herbst9. Mastered by Secret Lab. A great new discovery.From Electro Ambient Space, Oct. 2009This is a thoroughly immersive listening experience, the like of which I’ve seldom experienced in my 15 years of reviewing. I usually shy away from stuff this dark, but I found it strangely compelling from the very beginning, and my attention didn’t wane as the journey continued. Deep drones, rattling echoes of machinery, alien transmissions perhaps – it’s all there in abundance