 |
| #FOR FANS OF: Death/Doom, Encoffination, Skeletal Spectre |
It’s always a little troubling to mix together two extreme metal styles together that might not necessarily go well together, and in that regard Death and Doom are usually that mix which is what makes this Czech Republic entity so appealing on this second album. Generally, the only sense of cohesion between these styles comes from the oppressive atmospheres conjured within, yet here the lurching, slow crawl and agonized rhythms of Doom merge quite nicely with the pounding riff-work and dreaded atmospheres of Death into a solid whole by creating a lush, romantic atmosphere on the melodic side of things while going for the darker rhythms for the heavier sections. The influx of clean vocals and whispers against the harsher growls adds to the contrast quite nicely as well, tending to offer a token vocal over a given section which helps to set the mood and atmosphere within a given track which comes off rather nicely attempting this tactic and certainly allows for plenty of enjoyable tracks. Intro ‘Sea of Trees’ offers a series of moody, pounding rhythms and melancholic atmospheres with plenty of lush vocals mixed into the deeper growls that signals more intense and up-beat rhythms in the final half for a solid start to this. The massive ‘Dissolving’ gets right to the point with crushing, monolithic riffing, thunderous drumming and dark atmospheres that’s merged nicely alongside the lighter melodies as the inclusion of keyboards and stylish rhythms featured within make this a rather impressive offering that ranks as one of their highlights. ‘Norwegian Mist’ offers lush melodies and melancholic atmospheres that are more on the lighter side even on the heavier, crushing rhythms found on the later half which is still devastatingly heavy for another solid and enjoyable outing. ‘Liebeslied’ follows in much the same route of light melodies and atmospheres though this time the droning riff-work and rather sluggish pace tends to leave this decidedly underwhelming despite the generous use of crushing riffing throughout the latter half. The near-useless ‘Angst’ is an ambient interlude with discordant electronic noise swirling around it that does set-up ‘Nihil’ which goes for a more dynamic Death Metal atmosphere as the heavy, pounding rhythms and rather impressive keyboards backing the lighter sections that tends to get dropped back in favor of the heavier works here for a more enjoyable epic that mixes these genres together the best on here. Slightly changing things up, ‘Le Choix’ features trance-like droning riffing and plenty of atmospheric grandiose keyboards lending this an operatic quality against the romantic strings before finally letting the dark, heavy rhythms come into play for the later half which picks this up considerably for still decent enough effort. The album’s centerpiece track, the utterly massive sprawling epic ‘Black Mountain’ slowly moves from eerie pianos to pounding drumming, scorching riff-work and plenty of fine, outstanding melodies that are able to move through various sections of use with extended interludes depicting atmospheric nature sounds as well as mournful whispering that does drop this one slightly but on the whole comes off rather nicely for it’s atmosphere and melodies. Lastly, the more spoken-word ‘Below’ ends this on a lame note with an ironic narration about the album’s journey leading into the finale that would’ve been better served left as an instrumental. Still, there’s a lot more to like here than not and that’s enough to make this a decidedly enjoyable offering. (Don Anelli)
(Solitude Productions - 2014)
Score: 80