Is it possible to have too much of a good thing? If gothic atmosphere and moodiness is what you crave, Evoken have got you covered on Hypnagogia (Profound Lore). I mean this thing is moodier than a Type O Negative single on antidepressants while coping with self-image issues. All in all, if your wardrobe is as black as Ted Cruz’s heart and hobbies include strolling through cemeteries may I highly recommend Hypnagogia.
And possibly getting some sunlight from time to time.Continue reading
Synth-driven Funeral Doom and Wolves In The Throne Room protegees Vouna are streaming their entire new album before you can buy it. Releasing this Friday through Artemisia Records, the label forged by Aaron and Nathan Weaver of WITTR. Jam out to the awesomeness below. Vouna is on the road this week on a tour of the Pacific Northwest.Continue reading
Synth-driven funeral doom band Vouna has signed with Wolves In the Throne Room’s Artemisia Records. They are the first band chosen specifically by WITTR to release music on their label, besides themselves. If that is not enough endorsement for you, the music is killer. Their self-titled debut comes out in November, but you can listen to the first single, ‘Drowning City’, right now. Continue reading
It’s taken eight years for US tortured Doom activists Amarok to create an album but, finally, here it is. With four tracks clocking in at almost 70 minutes you know that Devoured (Translation Loss) is going to be a long ride, but the news here is that it’s an emotionally draining one also.Continue reading
I find that either when I am feeling down or when in the deepest parts of winter here in Massachusetts (who am I kidding, those two things are one in the same), that depressive music can help. With that said, the project known simply as, Slow, returns with the fifth chapter of atmospheric depression, entitled V – Oceans (code666/Aural Music). The Belgian seemingly solo project (technically a second member has been added on as of last year who is a lyricist) has really hit the nail on the head when it comes to funeral doom with some amazing atmosphere framing the whole sound.Continue reading
The cover art to Never Forever (Profound Lore) sums up pretty well what to expect from Monarch’s latest album; a black and white inverted crucifix fashioned from butterflies, dark and ominous juxtaposed with beauty. The symbolism of the butterfly hinting that this is going to be a tour of the darker recesses of the human psyche.Continue reading
We’re only at the beginning of March and thanks to Boise, Idaho’s Wolvserpent, we may already have one of the more unique and interesting metal releases this year. The list of adjectives that could be used to describe Aporia:Kāla:Ananta (Relapse Records) is absolutely endless. Ranging from haunting, beautiful, destructive, the list goes on. This album can only be described as an album that looks to fill you with utter darkness. The first emotion it will evoke however will be of curiosity. Aporia:Kāla:Ananta clocks in at just over forty minutes long, and at first glance you‘ll notice it is just one track. Yes, Aporia:Kāla:Ananta is just a forty minute song. Can we expect to see Aporia:Kāla:Ananta performed in it’s entirety on the road fairly soon?
Aporia:Kāla:Ananta starts with a build up of a looming atmospheric tension eventually being paired with a dreary violin. You feel as you’re floating through an inescapable bleakness that slowly surrounds and engulfs you. Taking the trash out late at night while enjoying Aporia:Kāla:Ananta on my iPod, I felt like I could have been on a movie set with the monster in the woods stalking it’s prey. Once Aporia:Kāla:Ananta reaches the seven minute mark, we hit a change of pace. A constant snare keeping pace, the atmosphere is building to what feels like the climax of a blockbuster. A subtle recitation of growls flowing with the marching snare and rhythmic violin leaving you mesmerized.
Like any climax all there is left after is the decent. The next few minutes have an ambience that feel like you’re falling into pure darkness. Further down the rabbit hole backing drones with light percussion and a haunting violin drag you straight down until the composition of your inner demons comes to an end. You’re then grabbed by the throat by pure despair. Funeral Doom metal at it’s finest. Dreary droning, echoing shrieks, dark ambience, this is clearly the soundtrack of your demise. The last twenty minutes continue with a droning doom. At times it feels like moments are drawn out too long but never in a negative way. Aporia:Kāla:Ananta has clearly been drawing out all emotion.
Aporia:Kāla:Ananta to me seems like an interesting album to recommend to others. You definitely need to be open-minded to appreciate the composition before you reach the Funeral / Drone / Doom Metal. The album as a whole is quite a bleak listen. Wolvserpent has essentially perfected the art of what being buried alive and eventually realizing you are doomed must sound like.
7.5/10
DEREK RIX
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Emerging from a sea of black t-shirts, Jason Keyser of Origin finds me standing mid-way through the venue’s pre open-door line.
“Oh, good it’s not a video recording,” Keyser says as we make our way around the corner to a quiet side of the street.
As we set down our gear on the sidewalk, Keyser greets wallet-chain wearing kids who recognize him.
“No, but this way, you can pose in the photos and fluff-out your hair,” I remark between his handshakes with fans.
“I’d rather you Photoshop me a lot,” he says as the crowd thins. “Give me a glow.”
Although Keyser and crew are about halfway through their co-headlining slot on the Devastation Across the Nation US tour, he looks rested and already illuminated, so I skirt the suggestion.
“Tony Lazaro said it best: ‘I feel like an old carnie in an old circus,’” Keyser quips, referring to a remark the Vital Remains guitarist made while Origin toured with the band in 2011. Lazaro parlayed the jest while standing at his band’s merch table as he watched young kids run amuck. “There’s a new generation of fans, and we’re still holding on,” Keyser says. “But [Origin guitarist and vocalist] Paul Ryan is the only original member, and he’s still just as young at heart as you can imagine; it’s adorable—he’s a lifer!”
Although there are newer generations of Metal fans taking to the scene, Origin remains one of the well-respected staples, lauded for their blast-beat blitzkriegs and searing technicality. And while Origin isn’t touring in support of anything necessarily “new,” the band’s last album, Omnipresent (Nuclear Blast), remains innovative and relevant.
“We’re lucky we’re not big enough that we have to cater to a certain look or style,” Keyser says. “People still seem to dig it, dig what we do. It keeps it fresh. Our last album, [Omnipresent] was a little different from the last one before it, but how ever we’re feeling is how we express ourselves.”
Would you ever take fans for a loop and put out a Funeral Doom album?
“Yeah, maybe—why not? Omnipresent featured a straight-up circle-pit, Thrash-Metal song, as well as a Black Metal song, so maybe we’ll put out an Origin Sludge album—slow it all down by 100 percent.”
Do you give a shit about what your fans think?
“If we could have sold out, we would have sold out a long time ago—I guess we are one of those bands that doesn’t “care” about what fans think, because if we did we’d be “selling out.”
I don’t think about it specifically like that, but…hmm, now that you broke it down, I’m going to have to think about it. “
Do you have plans for a follow-up to Omnipresent?
“After we’re done with the tour, we’ll have a lot of time off, and we’ll start pounding out a new [album] in early spring [next year].”
Now a-days, you have to keep pumping out albums to stay relevant—
There are some bands, however, that take a long time to put out an album, like Meshuggah.
“Meshuggah makes way more money than we do—we don’t have that luxury!
It is good to stay relevant; there’s a weird time period before the next album becomes a comeback—like, you have to put out new music before two years or after six, otherwise you’re lost in the abyss.
As far as a new album, though, I’m the last person whose input gets put in that consideration—my role comes last in that.”
Other than this tour, what do you have in the hopper you’re looking forward to?
“The tour is halfway done—I’m excited about it being all the way done, actually!
Ideally, we’ll be playing South America, and we’ll be playing a festival in South Africa too—I’m basically using the band as an excuse to travel around the world—good work if you can get it!”
Keyser and I make invisible oranges, before he disappears back into the club. Doors open, and my buddy and I make our way inside. We see Keyser sitting at the Origin merch table, fashioning a quiet grin, arms folded as he observes a carnival of young fans collecting in throngs before him.
Origin continues to co-headline the Devastation Across the Nation tour with Krisiun, and with supporting acts Aeon, Alterbeast, Soreption, and Ingested. The band is planning to head to the studio next year, so be on the look out for more information on their forthcoming activities online here:
Live albums – a glorious celebration of a band at their most urgent, or a badly-recorded set of songs you already own designed to fulfil a contractual obligation? Not content with pretty much inventing their own subgenre, seminal Finnish Doom masters Skepticism have decided to change the way we see live albums too, by recording their fifth album in its entirety in front of a live audience. Captured on their first official performance, Ordeal (Svart) simultaneously breaks the usual studio/live dichotomy and demonstrates a band at the very height of their confidence and cohesion.
Skepticism’s ’95 debut Stormcrowfleet (Red Stream) is credited as one of a small handful of albums responsible for creating the Funeral Doom subgenre with all elements in place, and their career since then has focussed on developing the strength of their composition rather than progressing their style; thick, mournful riffs, elegiac keyboards, tortured withdrawn growls all woven together into long but focussed songs that highlight an emotional honesty and range not usually heard within Metal. Skepticism are a textbook example of why it’s often better to master one approach than to experiment with many – musically there’s nothing on here that they didn’t play twenty years ago, but they do it with such depth, power and vision that it’s impossible to see that as a weakness.
If the songwriting on Ordeal is beyond question, the same can’t necessarily be said for the live recording. The band’s performance is absolutely flawless, and the sound is rich and powerful, but aside from a very small spattering of polite applause it’s almost impossible to tell that this is a live album at all. As a testament to the tightness and professionalism of the band it’s a striking achievement, but it’s not clear what it actually adds to the album. The six tracks of Ordeal proper are followed up by live versions of classic songs from their first two albums which have more in common with the traditional live album, but they’re strictly an extra to the main event – and even they’re delivered in a controlled, banter-free style that might as well be live in the studio. Skepticism are strictly a Let’s Hear Some Noise Motherfuckers free zone.
Whether the live performance is a gimmick or a vital part of the atmosphere is open for debate, but what is beyond discussion is that Ordeal is a masterful album of rich, textured and utterly commanding DOOM (trust me, it deserves capitals) from a band utterly in command of their chosen style.
8.0/10
RICHIE HR
I’ve always queried the ‘Funeral’ tag given to German behemoth Ahab. Their undeniably progressive, occasionally melodic leanings give their pummelling crawl a contradictory lightness. Fourth album The Boats of the Glen Carrig (Napalm Records) is a concept based on William Hope Hodgson’s novel of the same name, and is arguably the band’s most expansive project to date as well as boasting some staggering cover art.
Not known for an unadventurous nature, the outfit’s ambition here is nevertheless superseded by the accomplished sound, a crystal-clear production adding beef to the bones and an earthshaking resonance to the foreboding aura. Dainty musings give crushing opener ‘The Isle’ an air of mystery, decorated with Daniel Droste’s unearthly, growling scours which set the tone for this latest chapter of nautical terror. The sparing lead tones of ‘The Things That Made Search’ are evocative and emit the slight Gaelic tone expected of the scene; the subsequent mournful outset granted heartfelt emotion by Droste’s intonations and some subtle yet stirring harmonies. Harsher sounds are never far away of course, and a coruscating roar suddenly rips the ears apart, riffs surreptitiously squeezing the soul through indigent rhythms, veering movements and Cornelius Althammer’s fascinating drum patterns.
Guitar segues from lead to rhythm during ‘Like Red Foam (The Great Storm)’ are seamless, highlighting the organic, almost telepathic interaction between the instruments. Titanic explosions, meanwhile, wake the Earth’s core as they tear at the psyche, with lead edges softening the blows and solos adding an Eastern mystique. That Funereal bent does appear throughout, and introduces standout track ‘The Weedmen’: Droste’s hostile character the evil cousin of Tolkein’s Treebeard. The ‘cleans’ decorating the quiet section, however, soar into the sky and demonstrate the vocalist’s immense talent; while the superior solo work interrupts suitably morose, versatile riffs in arguably the most powerful yet emotional track Ahab has thus far recorded. The varying segments allow the fifteen minutes to fair breeze by, and indeed this is a valid statement for the album as a whole: this five-track version climaxing at just under an hour, yet the depth and meaning leaves the listener feeling every second.
The delicate, Torch-like first movement of closer ‘To Mourn Job’ explodes into a Doom-laden groove carrying more timber than a jiving pachyderm. Hushed, stroked chords open the second half of the track in wistful fashion, as if transporting the biblical character’s corpse to the crashing, swelling finale: mammoth riffs and rhythms that grind bone with slow yet dextrous power.
With more direction, cohesion and harnessed might than ever before, Ahab has produced its greatest, most accessible and soul-affecting opus.
8.5/10
PAUL QUINN