June 2022 Feature Release - The Fallen Edition
Another month flies by, which means it's time to select a new feature release for The Fallen. As it's my turn to choose, I've gone with Evoken's Quietus album from 2001. As consistent as this great U.S. Funeral / Death Doom band are, I personally don't think anything they've done tops Quietus. From the opening static and piano with spoken word, I'm 100% in! There are very few albums that can match this one for atmosphere, but hey, that's just my opinion.
As usual, it would be great to read what you all think of it either below or in review format.
https://metal.academy/releases/3390
Nice choice Ben, one of my favourite albums right there. I've only submitted the most brief of reviews for it previously so I'm looking forward to working up something a bit more substantial.
It was my younger brother Ben that first introduced me to New Jersey funeral/death doom metallers Evoken upon my return to metal back in 2009. He could certainly be classed as somewhat of an expert in the darkest & most extreme of the doom metal subgenres & he also knows my taste pretty well so it was no surprise that I found myself totally digging what I was hearing. You see Evoken don't really try to reinvent the wheel with their sophomore album "Quietus". They more or less harness the techniques of their early-90's heroes but do it exceptionally well. In fact, I'd be tempted to place this album right alongside most of them for overall impact & reward.
Evoken have made a name for themselves as being a band that sit very close to the mid-point between the slower & more mournful funeral doom metal of Esoteric & Mournful Congregation & the atmospheric doom/death of diSEMBOWELMENT & My Dying Bride with their extremely consistent back catalogue making them arguably the finest exponents of that sound. If I'm being honest though I have to admit that I've always found "Quietus" to sit far closer to the latter side of that equation, so much so that I've gone ahead & down-voted Funeral Doom Metal on its release page as it really is more of a secondary subgenre here in my opinion. Sure, there are some really slow & mournful sections scattered across its 63 minute run time however there are significantly more parts that draw upon the greats of the death/doom sound for inspiration if you pay close attention. I think it's the dark diSEMBOWELMENT style vocals that tend to fool people into thinking they're listening to funeral doom when a lot of the instrumentation could certainly have come from the Peaceville Three, particularly the drumming which owes a great deal of debt to My Dying Bride. There's a noticeably gothic feel to some of this material that inevitably takes my mind right back to that band's first couple of albums too, not to mention some obvious moments of plagiarism.
The guitar tone isn't perfect however it gets the job done with chuggy, slow & mid-paced riffs of pure doom. The vocals certainly enhance the atmosphere & are generally very well executed however it's the wonderful use of synthesizers that is the real drawcard here for mine, particularly on the lengthier & more epic tracks like "Where Ghosts Fall Silent" & album highlight "Embrace the Emptiness" which is arguably one of the greatest examples of death/doom you'll find. The atmosphere these tracks create is quite wonderful &, even though none of the other pieces are quite able to reach that elite level of quality, there's a strong consistency that flows right through the tracklisting & sees me finding it almost impossible not to dish out a premium rating. You see, Evoken just get it. They know how to create extreme doom metal with a genuinely thick & sorrowful atmosphere & even the tracks that start to drift a bit (see the faster, chuggier sections at the start & end of "Tending the Dire Hatred" for example) are easily recovered once they steer the ship back to troubled waters. If you're a fan of high quality death/doom with a funeral doom edge to it then you owe it to explore "Quietus".
For fans of Ataraxie, diSEMBOWELMENT & My Dying Bride.
4.5/5
Personally Daniel I think it justifies both funeral and death doom primaries. For me there is enough genuine funeral doom present, albeit not a majority, there is sufficient to still warrant a primary. Whilst I hear rhe MDB comparison this is what the Peaceville giants would sound like if they stopped fucking around with the faux-romanticism and langorous libertine pantomime they insist on pushing!
To be honest, though, I am kind of coming round to Vinny's view of genre obsessiveness as I am finding it is starting to interfere with my enjoyment and I've hit a bit of a crisis of confidence whereby I have realised I have neither the knowledge nor technical expertise to form factual judgements on particular pieces of music. I think I will just stick to emotional reactions going forward because I am on more solid ground there.
What can I say about Quietus other than it is a sublime combination of funeral and death doom that comfortably sits very high on my list of all-time great albums. Evoken cannot be accused of being a band who rush things. Forming in 1994, debut album Embrace the Emptiness wasn't released until four years later with sophomore Quietus emerging another three years after that. In fact their twenty-eight years have so far only seen six albums released, so I think we can safely say that the New Jersey five-piece are a band who like to take the time to properly work up their newest material before unleashing it upon their fans. This meticulousness reveals itself in the extremely consistent quality of Evoken's published material and never more so than here with this hour of extreme doom metal nirvana.
5/5