The first time I heard this band was when I was listening to a song from their debut Union in an Infinite playlist 6 months before this review. I thought the song was a nice stylistic homage to Periphery from start to finish. And now I can say the same about their new album Legacy! They're a new addition to the melodic modern progressive metal league of Leprous, Haken, The Contortionist, and Tesseract.

It took 5 years for this British progressive metal/rock band to make this follow-up to 2019's Union. Part of the delay was due to the hardships of the COVID lockdowns. But now they're here to deliver us this progressive offering. Also, don't mind the small bit of electropop elements I seem to pick up on.

Kicking things off with ethereal electronics is "Wraith". You already hear both the production and talent from the two key members of the band; guitarist Phil Monro and vocalist Andy Robison. They, along with the other members, work together to craft this complex structure in which ambience turns into metal grace, practically channeling the way of Devin Townsend. A melodic opening track to get you hooked! "Replica" is more emotional yet calm. Soon the melody builds up into more technical riffing. The blend of melody and heaviness is so unpredictable! Then comes the heavy "Source", in which the riffing and synths have stronger power in the second half. It's greatly direct while hinting at the diversity that would come in later tracks.

The clean "Empire" continues the complex structure though more prog than metal. Although it starts off reminding some of Porcupine Tree, eventually there would be more of the heavy riffing. It then leads to the short interlude "Storm". Personally I think it should've been called "Storm Coming", because it sounds more like the calm before the storm. On second thought, we're still far from the storm as "Mute" gives us a softer track that balances joy with loss in the music and lyrics. It's still a memorable emotional track, and it ends with heaviness suitable for the lyrical subject. The loss described in that track still stands in "Cenotaph", let out in defiance via crushing riffing. Things would get more atmospheric every now and then while tension lurks. Andy's vocals also help make that track another ambitious highlight. Everything's executed well in top-notch production, and there's no denying the horizons they fly over.

There's some brighter light in "Haar", another short direct track. It's a nice way to settle down after that towering pair of 8-minute tracks and get geared up for the monolithic finale. But before that, we have the title track, with the beat guiding you through the atmosphere. While it doesn't have a huge amount of impact, it can get you hooked for the album's ending climax. The climax being the monumental 10-minute epic "Signal". Everything's in beautiful flow. The band lets the beauty drift by, only saving the heaviness for when it's the right time. In the end, the track and the album closes the way it should. Fantastic!

This beautiful album Legacy has all the melody and power you can get. Well, maybe a slight more metal heaviness would be ideal, but that's OK. I look forward to what path they would take. The modern progressive metal/rock shaped up by VOLA and BTBAM is in the good hands of these young British lads!

Favorites: "Wraith", "Source", "Mute", "Cenotaph", "Signal"

I seem to have a small curse of not encountering a band until shortly after a longtime member has passed away. I've already discovered In Vain last year shortly after the tragic passing of their longtime keyboardist/clean vocalist Sindre Nedland. This is my first time checking out a Harm's Way album, following a recommendation from Vinny when he submitted a track from this album for a Revolution playlist, just a month after their longtime guitarist Bo Lueders left the world. RIP

I'm quite thankful for this recommendation because what an album this is! Common Suffering shows many different modern elements in their metalcore sound, taking it through diverse horizons beyond their earlier albums that are apparently more hardcore. They've given an older sound new and fresh life!

Striking hard right away is "Silent Wolf", already getting their straight-up metallic hardcore kicks. The riffing doesn't light up with "Denial" cranking things up in the undeniable heaviness. "Hollow Cry" is a more evolved song that I love. It takes on the sludge-ish sound of later Converge with an alt-ish edge. "Devour" has one of the most hardcore breakdowns in recent times. I may need some neck pain medicine after all that vicious headbanging.

Then there's the experimentation of "Undertow", an amazing highlight featuring Kristina Esfandiari (King Woman). It has a more haunting industrial sound, and I don't know whether it would be for The Revolution or The Sphere. If you see this track in a later playlist for one of those clans, you know which one I pick. It's so different and powerful, and you can forgive the band for placing that track here. Well done! "Heaven's Call" is another perfect track. Just pure heaviness that I'm glad was submitted to a Revolution playlist. "Cyanide" maintains the heaviness as another favorite track of mine.

"Terrorizer" can very well define industrial hardcore, if "hardcore" wasn't used in the more electronic sense. "Sadist Guilt" has strong riffing rhythm that can cut like a blade through glass. Then finally we have "Wanderer". The diversity of elements is much more apparent in this spectacular track than the rest. It sounds so organic and makes me look forward to what they will do next in their direction, if they choose to continue in memory of their fallen guitarist.

Common Suffering is aptly titled for the band's hard work of making the album and coincidentally for the grief of losing one of their members that were with them for a long time. You can tell in the former from how much heart and soul the band has put in their sound. And there are twists into different genres while staying firmly in metalcore. They can sometimes sound more hardcore or deathly or industrial. The heavy rage can really bite down, draw blood, and leave scars, showing the emotion that has stemmed from their work. Harm's Way can really add variety to the more extreme side of metalcore/hardcore. No harm no foul about that, right? Just chaotic rage at its height!

Favorites: "Hollow Cry", "Undertow", "Heaven's Call", "Cyanide", "Wanderer"

I have been making more of a conscious effort to follow up on some of the tracks from the site playlists that jump out at me each month and that is how I ended up in front of the latest release from Georgian (as in the country not the period of English history) funeral doomsters, Ennui. The word Qroba is a Georgian word meaning “vanishment” or a “fading of presence”, representing the moment light withdraws to leave space for something colder and final. Symbolic of the temporary dissolution of the band themselves, the album explores the inevitability of the end. In short, classic funeral doom fare. With song titles such as ‘Mokvda Mze.’ (which translates to ‘The Sun Has Died’) and ‘Becoming A Void’, Ennui leaves the listener in no doubt that if they are seeking positivity, they are in the wrong place.

The band name itself is the French word for “boredom”, which I find to be particularly ironic given there is no element of that emotional state present throughout my experience of Qroba. I am starting to realise that funeral doom may well be my second favourite sub-genre of The Fallen, pushing sludge for that top spot as time goes on. In fact, I heard this record on the same day as the new EP from Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean, and I prefer Qroba in a comparison of the two releases. Everything I want to hear on a funeral doom album is present on this album. Well, apart from the panduri, a traditional three-stringed Georgian instrument that I have never heard of until today. Otherwise, there are dense keys and suitably desolate atmospheres being created around them, alongside punishing riffs and the deep rumble of bass and guttural vocals too boot. All the while the drums functionally add percussive markers in the background. You could forget they are there at all on some occasions, which is more testimony to the quality of everything that’s going on around them as opposed to any fault with the performance or mix even.

I do get the occasional flourish of hope in the music, which is not something I want to hear too often in my funeral doom. Here, I think it stays just the right side of providing balance, just like the prog-reminiscent guitars around the halfway point of ‘Becoming Void’ also add a touch of the unexpected. The melancholic lead work here, which is delivered via long, drawn-out notes, almost tells its own story outside of the vocals themselves. When you factor in those keys, you soon find yourself in some cosmic death trance. If I close my eyes to this track, I just see endless space, with the odd burst of light, or the odd colour of gases that I am floating through. Listening to Qroba soon becomes a very immersive experience for me.

With over an hour of music to listen to here, I do think that Qroba is a record that has a certain place and time to be properly experienced. This is not background music. For me, if you are not sat still with this record playing, you are doing it, and yourself an injustice. It is a record that demands to be experienced as opposed to simply being listened to. From an arrangement perspective, it sounds to me like this has been very carefully put together. Tracks develop as opposed to just progressing. Given the theme of the album, it is quite easy to see this album as a soundtrack to the slow destruction of life as we know it. When that day comes, I will have this on my headphones.

Slow is a funeral doom project of prodigious belgian Déhà, who is perhaps better known for his black metal and blackgaze work, but who is also a proficient doomster with acts like Yhdarl and Wolvennest. He has released seven albums under the Slow banner, with "V-Oceans" unsurprisingly being number five and, probably, my favourite. This is the last of the Slow albums that were produced as a solo project, Déhà since having been joined by lyricist Lore Boeykens who also contributes bass and backing vocals.

Anyone even remotely familiar with Déhà's other projects will be unsurprised to hear a significant post-metal and -gazey element to Slow's funereal dirges, but make no mistake this is still ponderously heavy stuff. The vocals are of the gravel-throated, abyssal demon bellowing kind that are the cornerstone of so many fantastic funeral doom albums and are more than ably delivered here by the main man himself. As he intones at the beginning of "Ténèbres", "This is not meant to bring you joy, this is not meant to give you any solace," and it surely doesn't if you take its message literally yet, ironically, if you are a lover of the melancholy and desperate atmospherics of funeral doom then it may well bring you great joy indeed (it certainly does for me).

With tempos that are measured by a calendar rather than a metronome, the five, 10-minute plus tracks here crawl under your skin and sit there draining your optimism like a vampiric parasite feasting on the mind's positive energy, leaving its host bereft and borne down by the weight of existence. The riffs are monumental chords that swell like tsunamis, given additional heft and gravitas by layered synths and choral effects which thankfully don't swamp the guitar and drums, but which add their weight to the crushing mass subtlely enough so as not to be distracting. "Oceans" covers a theme that has served funeral doom very well over the years with its huge swells of sound being an exceedingly effective artistic interpreter of oceanic environs and deep sea tectonics, here being used as a metaphor for the unalterable inevitability of death, in other words, all the best sentiments of funeral doom.

The number of ratings for Slow albums on RYM is paltry with this being the most-rated with a touch over 300, yet this is funeral doom of the highest order that deserves to be considered up there with giants of the genre like Bell Witch and Esoteric. OK, maybe not Esoteric, but everybody else anyway! Criminally overlooked, for me this is a top drawer entry into the funeral doom pantheon.

I have been a fan of London's Morag Tong for a good decade now, since the release of this debut. four-track EP back in 2016. They are named for the fictional guild of assassins featured in The Elder Scrolls game Morrowind and their reverb-drenched doom metal is as influenced as much by stoner metal as you would expect from a band of RPG-ing nerds. My original one-line review for this went "stoner doom that's nice 'n' slow and as heavy as an anchor strapped to an anvil that's tied to a millstone" and you know what, that remains true, but there is actually a bit more to it than just sheer weight so I thought I had better elaborate.

The riffs have an in-built bluesiness that reaches back as far as Sabbath's debut but which are delivered with such heft and distortion that they sound mountainously and crushingly heavy. The soloing, such as it is, has a psychedelic, spacey tinge that is fed from the band's stoner roots and which is aided by some Hawkwind-ish electronics buried quite deeply in the mix. I hesitate to call it trippy, though, because the tempo is so lethargic and the riffs just so fucking heavy that I am unsure if anything with this amount of heft can ever be labelled as such, although the title track "Through Clouded Time" does feature some quieter, more trippy moments, such as the introductory couple of minutes or so which almost sounds like a very heavy version of Fleetwood Mac's "Albatross" and a quite funky bass breakdown just after the halfway point. The two tracks either side, "Godhead" and "The Eyes of Men" are a bit more straight forward but deliver such devastatingly heavy doom riffs that they are still worthy of attention in their own rights.

Drummer Adam Asquith also handles vocals which are perfectly functional for this style of stonerised doom, whereas his drumming is really good within the confines of the genre and he and bassist Sam Lewis both featuring prominently enough in the mix to lay down a super-solid foundation upon which dual guitarists Alex Clarke and Lewis Crane can lay down the towering monoliths of the riffs. The four are obviously deeply steeped in the world of stoner doom and they sound like solid technical musicians perfectly able to translate their intentions into music, so there is a definite authenticity about what they delivered here.

In summary, this is a very impressive twenty-three minutes that handed out an attention-grabbing calling card to the UK's doom metal afficianados. Unfortunately I felt 2018's full-length "Last Knell of Om" failed to live up to this promise and I have yet to hear 2023's Grieve, so this stands as the band's high water mark for me so far. Truth is though, even if they never bettered this, it would still stand as a worthy testament. I was then and remain still, mightily impressed.