Sky Burial is the third-full length album from atmospheric black metal/folk/drone group Echtra, who hail from Olympia, Washington. The record, which is composed of two twenty-three minute tracks entitles “Sky Burial I” and “Sky Burial II,” forms the first instalment of a conceived trilogy of albums entitled The Passage Cycle. Each of these three records will deal with “sloughing off the mortal coil” in some way, and the transition from one state of being to the next. Echtra is a solo project, all elements performed by the eponymous multi-instrumentalist, though Echtra is joined by guest musicians for rare live performances. The word “Echtra” is an old, pagan Irish word for journey of adventure, and particularly a quest that takes the traveller to the Otherworld, or realm of the fairies. It is a journey that involves not only moving from one state to the other (our world into a different world), but a process of transformation, as passing into another mode of being can’t help but change us. This is also how Echtra frames the way the idea of death is explored throughout Sky Burial, as a profound change or transfiguration, but certainly not a permanent end. This is mirrored in the title of the record as well: a sky burial is a type of funeral wherein the body is ritually dismembered and fed to carrion birds, thereby buried in the sky. Record Label: Temple Of Torturous Style: Black Metal