From The Metal Archives Vol. 4

[When I add labels to the Metal Labels on Bandcamp page I usually scan their releases looking for anything interesting I might have missed. The reviews on The Metal Archives are a great help when doing this: a couple of great reviews

By the reviewers from The Metal Archives.

[When I add labels to the Metal Labels on Bandcamp page I usually scan their releases looking for anything interesting I might have missed. The reviews on The Metal Archives are a great help when doing this: a couple of great reviews means an album I should probably check out. With this series I'd like to share some of my finds - in this edition we visit a couple of bands from France and Germany.]


Where to start? A brutal and massive sound. A harsh black metal/sludge alike voice, cleverly used here and there to spread the few words of life’s misery and hope. Intelligent and highly effective song structures, many mid tempo parts being perfect to simply bang your brain out, breaks used cleverly to slow down and to lead to those parts of extreme melody and, yes tragedy! Its unbelievable to listen to this ability to pour both brutality and remarkable melody into one song. Take for instance "Spirit Disease" or their masterpiece "Fall for Your Creation": downtempo brutality – break – short semi acoustic intermezzo – wall of massive low tuned melody. Goosebumps! Listen to "Fall for Your Creation" and you know what I mean. One shivering melodic riff follows the other, all performed using this crushing brutal guitar sound and the "dry" drum sound in slow tempo [read ochsenschaedel's full review here.]

The album is very straight to the point, with "Pyre Without Flames" washing over you in a wave of powerful, majestic funeral doom, the distorted guitars sounding absolutely massive. The vocals are somewhat buried in the mix, however their power is still easily apparent, as The Goat triumphantly bellows, "The free mind is a torch, this land is a pyre!" Criticisms of modern civilization follow, and it is the driving theme throughout the album. After that stellar opening, the album travels through many styles while still retaining a similar mood, although the funeral doom tracks grow more hateful with each passing one. Instrumental passages are placed throughout the album, including the particularly odd, yet endearing track entitled "The Fall of Everything" [read Apatheria's full review here.]

Woebegone Obscured - Marrow of Dreams

I, Voidhanger Records has opened a Bandcamp page. Among the albums available you can find Marrow of Dreams, the new release from Danish band Woebegone Obscured. Metal Archives touts them as 'Blackened Funeral Doom/Death Metal' and the PR material lumps them together with Disembowelment, Evoken and Thergothon. This is both right and wrong. Woebegone Obscured is obviously funeral doom, blackened and death too; But the tempo is generally a little higher, and Woebegone Obscured doesn't seem so intent on crushing you under the weight of the music as those three bands (The very non funeral doom cover might also be a giveaway there).

The songs on Marrow of Dreams are like progressive funeral doom symphonies. They cover a lot of ground and touches more genres than the aforementioned. Goth metal. Progressive metal. Traditional doom. Jazz and flamenco even. All the time there is an underrunning current of dissonance (both in playing and feeling) and disquiet. Which makes sense considering that the album is inspired by main man Danny Woe's "long period of time that lead him to deep depression, to a paranoid/schizophrenic disorder diagnosis, and to a seemingly timeless stay at a mental hospital". Danny is listed as sole vocalist and he utilizes an impressive range of styles - from death growls and blackened barks to wavery cleans - to tell his tales of, well, woe.

The production is clear and layered, you can pick out every instrument. Which makes sense, there is a lot to listen to. That also goes for the length of the album, it clocks in at 80 minutes. Which may be too long, at least I could have done without the second song "Vacuum Ocean". It is less adventurous, more plodding, than the others and suffers somewhat from it. The wavery cleans are overdone, and the 'sounds of waves lapping at the shore' thing so clichéed. Plus points for the unhinged blackened vocals, and the whale noises near the end though. But besides that Marrow of Dreams is a successful release. The playing is top notch and there's so much going in the songs that your interest never wanes. The transitions never seem forced, which is paramount in making long, complex, and slow songs work. This is not the harshest doom you'll ever hear, nor the most extreme, but it's pretty damn interesting.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

Life in the Dark - The Sunya is Rising

The Sunya is Rising, the debut EP from Life in the Dark is dominated by the title track spanning 23 minutes and 27 seconds. Epic drone that ebb and flows between crushing melancholy and quieter dirges. I think this is entirely electronic, with what sounds like giant guitar chords and massive mechanical drums all bathed in reverb. Coupled with melancholic little piano melodies and the sad wailing voices you can pick up deep below in the mix. You could call this electronic funeral doom, I call it a beautiful piece of music. Check out the review by the gentlemen at Lurker's Path.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

Inverloch - Dusk | Subside

Review by Dane Prokofiev.

Australia’s funeral doom metal band diSEMBOWELMENT have not only reformed under this new cool-sounding name of Inverloch, but have made their return so heavy that you can literally feel walls of sound pressing down on your eardrums when you spin this disc.

As was their style when they were still diSEMBOWELMENT, the music heard in this three-track EP is generally a good balance between foreboding, plodding passages of doom metal and groovy, fast-hitting death metal assaults. While they stated in this interview that this is not supposed to be the case (“It is a totally new band and has no relevance to diSEMBOWELMENT other than having ex-members. New band, new members, new music and new logo.”), the sonic imprints of their diSEMBOWELMENT days can definitely be heard.

For example, that lengthy introduction that takes its time to build up to an audible sound level in opening track “Within Frozen Beauty” is such a funeral doom thing to do. But, the track doesn’t just HMMMMMM, RAAAHHHHHH and alternate between the two states of mind like the other two tracks (a trademark of the death/funeral doom movement pioneered by the band), there's a fast-paced guitar solo from 3:26 to 4:34 too!

Second track “The Menin Road” lumbers along at a typical funeral doom pace, stifling you with crushing riffs and tortured vocals, with Mazziotta providing sparse but atmospheric percussion support, crashing the cymbals to great effect every now and then. It serves as a apt bridge between it and album closer, “Shadows Of The Flame”, leading into the last song of the EP with a chilling silence.

“Shadows Of The Flame” is structurally quite similar to “Within Frozen Beauty”, and while it does surprise one with a sudden burst of death metal aggression right after the chilling silence, it degenerates into mere funeral doom plodding for quite a while before it starts up its engine again with a moderately-paced death metal passage. Keyboards make their haunting presence known, with James whispering in an anguished voice alongside it, matching the level of despondency built up throughout the song with an equally depressive but very human timbre.

As a collection of demo tracks, this short EP may be only slightly over 20 minutes long, but it provides a very tempting glimpse at what Inverloch possibly have to offer in their eventual debut full-length album. Regardless of the name change Inverloch still offer the same old, primitive and carnal breed of doom metal that made the name diSEMBOWELMENT legendary.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

Profetus - .​.​.​to Open the Passages in Dusk

Profetus - .​.​.​to Open the Passages in Dusk is funeral doom of the bleakest and most beautiful sort. Slow drums and riffs sounding like the guitarist slowly dragging his fingers across the strings. Gentle and whispered vocals mixed with death growls. The ever present ominous organ chords gives .​.​.​to Open the Passages in Dusk a ritualistic feel, like a pagan requiem mass. To quote the review from From the Dust Returned:

Where some past funeral doom recordings have felt like they seeped at your spirit from forsaken crypts or empty castle walls, ...To Open the Passages in Dusk seems to skirt the forest canopy at dusk, or sail across the lake waters on wings of precipitous regret.

Read another review, from Lurker's Path, and listen to the sorrowful elegies of Profetus.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

Abomino Aetas - Undead

Abomino Aetas - Undead. Cvlt Nation came up with a vivid description of this little black gem: "Picture the vocalist standing above an empty grave screaming at a wooden casket slowly being lowered into the earth". On their Bandcamp

Abomino Aetas - Undead. Cvlt Nation came up with a vivid description of this little black gem: "Picture the vocalist standing above an empty grave screaming at a wooden casket slowly being lowered into the earth". On their Bandcamp Abomino Aetas succinctly states that the genre is Funeral Doom melded with Pure Primitive Norwegian Black Metal.