Exploring early funeral doom is fast becoming my favourite way to relax.  It really is testimony to the knowledge of the creator of this clan challenge (The Fallen: Doom Metal - The Early Days) as to how good an introduction to the clan this list of releases is.  Until recently I had only really listened to Bell Witch's Mirror Reaper as my only regular experience of funeral doom.  Understanding where the whole sub-genre that influenced that record comes from is a real treat.  As with my review of Winter's Into Darkness, I find the sheer simplicity of Thergothon's Stream From the Heavens to be remarkable in the sense of the immersive atmosphere that it creates.  Not that Winter's debut was dripping with high production values, but Thergothon's debut sounds like it was recorded in a basement somewhere in their native Finland.

What makes this album more remarkable is that there was only three members who recorded all this.  Sharing vocal, keyboard and guitar duties across all three of them (with drums handled solely by Jori Sjöroos), Stream From the Heavens is a real team effort.  This is not only dripping in atmosphere folks, it is heavy as fuck as well.  It takes the blueprint of Into Darkness and ramps up the weight dramatically.  The funeral atmospheres are serviced brilliantly by the almost black metal vocal style that sits alongside those dreary clean vocals (that also have a fair amount of spoken word alongside them).  These grim and deathly croaks add a real dimension to this record and are perhaps my favourite part of the whole experience.

I guess my only mystery here is why this album is called Stream From the Heavens when this sounds like it comes up from the opposite direction altogether.  Consistently, the record pulls you further and further into the agonisingly slow and dense atmosphere that it creates without making the whole experience feel like it goes on for too long.  At a shade under 41 minutes, this album is a perfectly palatable slab of music that never feels like it outstays its welcome.  It is bizarre how such fetid sounding vocals and crushing riffs can relax me so much but this album replaces any weight on my shoulders with a much different and more interesting weight I guess.

In my book, 1990 was a sterling year for releases.  Just take a look in the Releases section on the site folks and tell me otherwise amigos!  It was one of the key formative years of discovery for me in metal and one that is close to my heart as a result.  Now, although not on any "top" release list of mine for the year, I am already aware of the existence of Winter and their classic debut album Into Darkness having read much love for it and venturing into numerous listens over the years.  The fact is, not having been that into most of the doom metal world and associated sub-genres, I hadn't really paid it that much attention until having to revisit for The Fallen clan challenge I am undertaking.

Having heard it several times in recent weeks I would describe it as a very functional album.  Backhanded compliment though that may be it is most certainly true to my ears at least.  I don't recall an album that marries the sum of its parts so well in all honesty.  Servants of the Warsmen for example is so simplistic yet effective that it actually makes me smile (not the intention of the record - I know!) with its almost arrogant presentation.  At the same time, the album overall is a (deliberately) monotonous affair that uses repetition extensively.  This does not get boring at any point since the idea is to create an atmosphere and inhabit that dank space for the entre 46 minutes of the album run time.

My "functional" comment therefore is aimed as nothing but praise, certainly when we add the context of the timing of this record (there wasn't much of anything like this out there at the time).  To create such an immersive experience with such a stripped back and down-tuned set of parts is truly interesting to me.  It is almost an effortless record to listen to because it does the job it intends to do so well.  As if opening up the album with an instrumental track is not bold enough a move, we get another one in the middle of the album which kicks off the whole tortuously slow second half of the record.

I would describe Winter's one and only full-length as "nonchalant" in delivery, designed to baffle by the sheer weight of the basic arrangements alone.  But the bafflement is dulled by the slow doping your brain gets track after track as Into Darkness washes over you.  One of the most relaxing listening experiences of my Fallen clan journey so far.

It is 2002.  Your band has just released its two magnum opus' in the last seven years in the shape of Imaginations from the Other Side and Nightfall in Middle-Earth and both records have made you gods of the power metal scene.  Where do you go next?  Onwards and upwards surely?  Or off in a completely different direction?  Well, whilst they most certainly did not veer off onto any side road, with A Night at the Opera, Blind Guardian did not quite continue the golden run of albums either.  For context here (a you will all know The Guardians is not one of my clans any longer) I am on a mini-exploration of the year 2002 as I refuse to believe that Tsjuder's Demonic Possession (whilst a solid effort) is the best that 2002 had to offer.  I do not recall quite why I immediately ventured beyond Nightfall... and straight into At The Edge of Time as my next BG album without stopping to listen to their 2002 or indeed their 2006 effort either, but the fact is that there is nothing awful about A Night at the Opera, it just is not either of the two records that came before it.  Whilst the ambition is undeniably there, the delivery is not.

Now, I admit in the same breath that I would not want a simple regurgitation of either of its predecessors on A Night at the Opera.  However, I just feel that by way of comparison, the 2002 effort is constantly promising a crescendo that never actually arrives.  Although it starts strong enough, it soon fades into a very rock music space with catchy choruses galore still but blunt and unimaginative riffs running alongside.  The vocals and the leads all scream what came on the previous two records alright but there are moments on here where it sounds like BG have lost the plot a bit.  Cramming verses into timeframes that they are not tailored to fit makes the album sound rushed in places and equally cumbersome to enjoy.

This is not to say that this is a record without high points.  Opening track Precious Jerusalem is a triumph, straight out of the Imaginations... playbook in fact.  Equally, the dazzling lead work and infectious chorus of Wait for an Answer have legs that run in the memory for days after finishing listening to the record.  Blind Guardian have not gone entirely off the boil but overall are on more of a simmer some four years after the red hot Nightfall In Middle-Earth.  If I take time to compare with the follow up record, At the Edge of Time then I would have to say that A Night at the Opera is a step down even from that release which seemed to deploy orchestration much more cleverly to beef things up considerably.  Tsjuder sit unchallenged in my 2002 ratings still.

I wanted to find an album that is so bad and sh*tty, enough to fit my own top 10 worst albums list. I thought I would search in the early mathcore or deathcore release lists because that's where I found some sh*tters during my rediscovery journey. And ladies and gentlemen, this is the F***ING WORST!!!

Just from the band name and album title, I knew F*** the Facts was gonna be a massive issue for me, and it is! It's all just a true example of f***ing grindcore that is a b***h to get used to for those inexperienced with the genre like myself. And I was expecting some bad-a** Dillinger Escape Plan-like mathcore and there ain't! I should've known from a band that has the same genre as a certain band named A.C. that made a track homophobically insulting DEP fans, among other controversial tracks.

If you're a fan of grindcore and its bands, you do you. However, albums like this prove that this genre is not the right one for me. F*** this band F*** the Facts!

Favorites: N/A

Sweden’s Gorement are one of those unique cases of an extreme metal band that has built up a following very gradually over many years before finally being placed on somewhat of a pedestal by underground enthusiasts who all swear blind that they were into them back in the day. The reality is that unless you were an obsessive tape trader then you probably didn’t encounter the band until long after the year of release. There was a bit of a buzz around the tape trading scene about Gorement’s solitary full-length in the mid-1990’s & I was lucky enough to pick the album up through an Aussie trader I was involved with who was utterly infatuated with Swedish death metal, particularly of the doomier variety as we find here.

I have to say that “The Ending Quest” didn’t blow me away at the time though & it’s been fascinating to see their cool-factor gaining momentum over the years. I’ve been meaning to revisit the album for a good four or five years since I noticed it had been remastered & released by Century Media, mainly because I wanted to see if I’d been missing something back in the day. I also had a strong suspicion that “The Ending Quest” might be something that would interest our beloved Sonny given that one of my strongest memories of it was that it sat somewhere in the grey area between death metal & doom/death.

Upon review, I’d have to say that that’s a fairly accurate recollection because, despite most websites claiming Gorement to be doomy death metal in a similar way to that of bands like Autopsy & Asphyx, I’d suggest that “The Ending Quest” is actually a more genuine hybrid & worthy of a dual tagging (& clanning too if you want to get technical). Gorement combine the classic mid-paced death metal of Bolt Thrower & early Amorphis with the melodic doom/death of early Paradise Lost & Katatonia but they do it with the sort of grimy underground authenticity that appeals to an audience that was raised on crudely dubbed demo tapes. The execution is fairly sloppy & unsophisticated with the musicianship not being high on the list of priorities however those aren’t criticisms as such as those elements tend to work in with Gorement’s whole image & mystique to tell you the truth. I think it’s the contrast of the dark brutality of death metal with the catchy melodies of doom/death that gives them a unique atmosphere & appeal that’s quite rare these days & the filthy production job only further enhances that.

Front man Jimmy Karlson does a splendid job at the death growls & he may well be the highlight of “The Ending Quest” although there’s also an argument for the atmospheric guitar melodies during the doomier moments too. Unfortunately for me though, I’ve always favoured the more sophisticated American brand of death metal over the comparatively more primitive Scandinavian style & that position sees me craving a little more professionalism here. Despite quite enjoying almost the entire tracklisting, I can’t say that I find any of these tracks to really hit my sweet spot. It’s only really the noticeably weaker “Darkness Of The Dead” that I regard as being subpar with the other nine songs possessing an impressive consistency, even if the level they’re maintaining isn’t close to the top tiers. I tend to find the doomier moments to be more attractive than the up-tempo death metal riffs & I think that comes down to the band’s lack of precision as much as anything.

After giving “The Ending Quest” a few active listens in recent days I’ve reached the conclusion that not a lot has changed in regard to its appeal for me personally. It’s certainly an enjoyable listen but I can’t say that I feel like I’ll be returning to it any time soon. Is it worthy of the praise it seems to receive these days? Well… no, I don’t think it is. There was much better material being released at the time & I kinda get the feeling that it’s the albums primitive aesthetics that are as responsible for its lofty status as much as anything else. I mean, just take a look at that album cover, particularly the logo which seems to have been hand-drawn & pasted on with glue! If that’s not authentically underground & primitive then I dunno what is.