The New Music Thread : The Fallen Edition

I enjoyed this one after an initial spin a few weeks ago, didn't know it was an offshoot of Winterfylleth. Definitely one to go back to for, like you said, something a bit different than normal with the cool Medieval influences. It's rare that this blend of styles doesn't get tossed into the fantasy, orc-slaying bin and even though I'm a fan of that kind of stuff more than most, Arð is still a refreshing find. 

Edit: After another listen this afternoon I forgot how gorgeous this album can be, the orchestral and choir elements are perfectly placed as to not be overbearing while still attributing a ton to the atmosphere. It does plod along a bit too much here and there for my tastes, but it reminds me of a more bombastic and full sounding Obsequiae. Not sure if that's a good comparison or not, but it does remind me I haven't listened to their first two albums, which I really should do. Revisiting this one has really put me in the mood.

In a way, Xephyr, the Obsequiae comparison is not unfounded. I have only heard their second album, but they do seem to be attempting something similar with black metal to what Arð is doing with doom metal. As I said this isn't perfect, but it is great that someone is trying something fresh. If you really like the whole medieval sound, I would suggest Dolven's first album, Navigating the Labyrinth. It is tagged as dark folk on rym, but I think it sounds like medieval acoustic doom and is definitely worth trying if you dig non-cheesy, medieval-themed music.

Hi Ben, I just read your review of the new Thou/Mizmor split and your request for advice. Thou are doom/sludge and Mizmor are more blackened sludge as a rough guide. If you want to check out either I would suggest you start with Cairn from 2019 for Mizmor and 2018's Magus for Thou. Both are great, but personally I prefer Thou, although I still have much to explore myself from both bands. Mizmor's ALN has close ties to MSW of Hell and plays drums for Hell live.

Hi Ben, I just read your review of the new Thou/Mizmor split and your request for advice. Thou are doom/sludge and Mizmor are more blackened sludge as a rough guide. If you want to check out either I would suggest you start with Cairn from 2019 for Mizmor and 2018's Magus for Thou. Both are great, but personally I prefer Thou, although I still have much to explore myself from both bands. Mizmor's ALN has close ties to MSW of Hell and plays drums for Hell live.

Thanks Sonny! Sounds like I have a lot to get my teeth into.

Ufomammut - Fenice

Released 06/05/22

It seems that Ufomammut have succumbed to the pandemic that has been plagueing us all over the past few years. No, not Covid-19 - the Atmospheric Sludge Metal pandemic that seems to be the only game in town as far as a lot of metal fans seem to be concerned. With every man and his dog putting out albums of slow-build, crushing climax metal just lately, Ufomammut have also got in on the act. Personally I feel the build-up to payoff ratio is too high and much prefer the Italians' wall-of-sound, velocity-ridden space metal to the excessive navel-gazing they present on their latest album. It's not a bad album by any means, but it is kind of disappointing.

3.5/5
 

Bog Body - Cryonic Crevasse Cult

Released: 20th May 2022 on Profound Lore

As anyone who is remotely familiar with my ramblings will tell you, I am always partial to some filthy, cavernous, Autopsy-style death doom, so I had some decent expectations for this, Bog Body's debut album. Alas these expectations were just castles in the sky as the reality is not as great as the premise, which is putrid death doom that rejects six-stringers and let's the four-stringed beast lead the way, plumbing new depths of cavernousness. The truth is that the lack of lead guitar means zero riffs, thus robbing the tracks of the requisite heft that doom metal demands and replacing it with a muted rumbling that doesn't truly pack much of a punch at all. Add to that the muted drum sound and the distant-sounding vocals and you have a death doom release that lacks any sort of presence and just flutters about at the periphery of your attention, coming off like a glorified basement demo. The two guys from Bog Body can count themselves rather fortunate to have scored interest from a major metal label such as Profound Lore, especially with the huge number of unsigned acts in the current crowded metal scene.

Cryonic Crevasse Cult is not a complete loss as a couple of tracks generate some interest, Ice Stained Kurgan and the title track for example, but generally, even for me, it was a bit of a slog and seemed much longer than it's actual 33 minutes run time. The sad thing is that with a decent guitarist, comfortable in the Asphyx/Autopsy style they would have a decent LP on their hands.
2.5/5

After finishing the Post Malone catalogue just for fucks, I'm heading straight into more Nadja.  Btw, if anyone can find the original 2003 version of Skin Turns to Glass, not the reworked version, please let me know.

Temple of Void - Summoning the Slayer (2022)

Not exactly brand new, being a couple of months old now, but what the hell?

I've been an ardent supporter of the Detroit five-piece for some time now and previous full-length, The World That Was, was one of my favourite albums of 2020 and one I purchased on vinyl such was it's quality, so obviously I was really looking forward to Summoning the Slayer. So how does the latest album shape up in comparison to it's earlier brethren? My initial reaction was that Summoning the Slayer was a bit underwhelming, but subsequent listens have seen me modify that stance. I think that I was experiencing a case of reality being unable to live up to expectations, so was initially too harsh in my reaction. Summoning the Slayer takes the band's melodic death doom template from their earlier work and this time around go down a more gothic-led path than the spacey/psychedelic trip they took on The World That Was. I am often more than a little ambivalent towards gothic metal, so that may also explain my initial reticence regarding the new record I suppose. To the band's credit, they incorporate the gothic trappings exceedingly well and don't fall into the trap of overdoing it and tipping over into excessive theatricality than ruins so much gothic-flavoured metal for me.

The album starts off strongly with Behind the Eye, a fairly straight-up slab of cavernous death metal which is followed by possibly the highlight of the album Deathtouch which is where the gothic guitar work first makes an appearance. The lighter melancholic tone of the gothic lead guitar works in marked contrast to the heaviness and crunch of the riffing and the guttural growling of excellent vocalist Mike Erdody to provide an extremely satisfying blend of light and dark motifs. I don't want to oversell the gothic side of the album as this is still overwhelmingly a (fairly melodic) death doom album but the band do like to bring in elements from other styles into their songwriting, such as the space and psychedelic rock they utilised on their previous album. Ultimately it comes down to whether Temple of Void have the necessary heft behind them to convince as a death doom outfit and I think they illustrate once more that indisputedly, yes they do, being an exceedingly tight and proficient unit with superior songwriting ability. Kudos to them that they have no desire to keep trotting out the same LP over and over again, but whilst trying out new sounds refusing to abandon what appealed to their growing legion of fans in the first place. True, Summoning the Slayer may be more of a grower and less an immediate rush than previous releases, but those pesky increased expectations must come with the territory for any decent band I suppose and the quality does ultimately win out over any initial hesitancy.
4/5

Mid-August seems like a good point for a review of the Fallen releases of the first half of the year.

So here's my TopTen Fallen-related releases of 2022 up to now:

1. Messa - Close

2. Epitaphe - II

3. Mournful Congregation - The Exuviae of Gods: Part I EP

4. Swallow the Sun - Return to the Void

5. The Funeral Orchestra Funeral Death - Apocalyptic Plague Ritual II

6. Temple of Void - Summoning the Slayer

7. Night Hag - Phantasmal Scourge

8. Friends of Hell - Friends of Hell

9. Mares of Thrace - The Exile

10. Deathbell - A Nocturnal Crossing

Finnish traditional doomsters Spiritus Mortis have a new album out September 16th via Svart Records on CD & vinyl.

The single from the album is called Death Charioteer:

French funeral/death doom outfit Monolithe have a new album out this autumn called Kosmodrom.

They have released a ten-minute single from it [spoiler alert - it is great!]

From YouTube:

Monolithe presents a new song: "Soyuz".

Lasting 10 minutes, "Soyuz" is an excerpt from the band's new album "Kosmodrom" to be released in the fall of 2022.
The song narrates the crash of the Soyuz-1 spaceshuttle in April 1967, killing its passenger, cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov.

"Soyuz" and the rest of the album tell the tale of intrepid pioneers, explorers, discoverers and the dangers and sacrifices inherent in their leap into the unknown, may it be voluntary or not, through the metaphor of real historical events related to the space conquest on the Soviet side.

To avoid any potential ambiguity, Soyuz and the album this song is taken  from have absolutely no relation to the current dramatic geopolitical situation, nor are they an ode to the Soviet era. The concept, music, lyrics and visuals were created between spring 2020 and the very beginning of 2022.

Japanese female stoner doom duo BlackLab are back with new album In a Bizarre Dream released by New Heavy Sounds on 19th August.

A single from the LP was released earlier in the year, called Abyss Woods and it's an ass-kicker:

Just ordered my vinyl copy from Bandcamp!!

Been doing some catching up on this year's Fallen releases so here's an update to my Top Ten of the year to date:

1. Messa - Close
2. Epitaphe - II
3. Mournful Congregation - The Exuviae of Gods: Part I EP
4. Shape of Despair - Return to the Void
5. The Funeral Orchestra Funeral Death - Apocalyptic Plague Ritual II

6.Tzompantli - Tlazcaltiliztli
7. Temple of Void - Summoning the Slayer
8. Boris - Heavy Rocks

9. Night Hag - Phantasmal Scourge
10. Friends of Hell - Friends of Hell

Mares of Thrace and Deathbell fall out of the top 10.

Nice. Mine's not all that different from yours, although I need to check out that Funeral Orchestra album (and add it to the site!). One correction though; the wonderful Return to the Void is by Shape of Despair, not Swallow the Sun.

Here's my top 10 so far...

1. Shape of Despair - Return to the Void

2. Mournful Congregation - The Exuviae of Gods - Part 1

3. Mizmor & Thou - Myopia

4. Epitaphe - II

5. Messa - Close

6. Ataraxy - The Last Mirror

7. Tzompantli - Tlazcaltiliztli

8. Druid Lord - Relics of the Dead

9. Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard - The Harvest

10. Friends of Hell - Friends of Hell

Nice. Mine's not all that different from yours, although I need to check out that Funeral Orchestra album (and add it to the site!). One correction though; the wonderful Return to the Void is by Shape of Despair, not Swallow the Sun.

DOH!!

I still need to check out the Ataraxy album as I quite enjoyed their previous one and I also need to listen to the Thou/Mizmor split.

The year is shaping up a bit better now after a slow start and the Fallen end of year list should look a bit better than I originally feared.

BlackLab - In a Bizarre Dream (2022)

I've been a fan of the Japanese stoner metal duo since their debut ep which saw light of day in 2017. They've come a fair way since those early days and have grown in confidence, with their sludgy stoner metal taking on a certain punkish swagger as they raise two fingers to all the naysayers. Coincidentally I have been listening to the new Boris album also this week and the two do seem to compliment each other pretty well. They aren't exactly the same, but they both utilise a riotous expression of stoner metal, Boris drawing on noise rock and hardcore, BlackLab using sludge and punk to achieve a similar aim. In a Bizarre Dream is the more "metal" of the two albums but is a bit less anarchic than Heavy Rocks.

There are some killer cuts here, the opening riff to the single Abyss Woods is a real doozy for example and Yuko's guitar work in general is a treat as she fires off riffs and solos with equal abandon. Her vocals aren't bad either, her harsh howls are nerve-shredding and her cleans have a grungy punkishness to them. Meanwhile drummer Chia provides creditable support, having to propel the tracks forward solo with the duo not electing not to employ a bassist (which also adds to the punky diy sound of a track like Dark Clouds.)

The driving Crows, Sparrows and Cats features Stereolab's Lætitia Sadier on lead vocal which adds a different dynamic, she sounds a bit like Nico on the Velvet Underground album, which has a softening effect to the track, making Yuko's heavily distorted guitar sound less aggressive and more trippy. Sometimes the duo throttle things back, such as the crawling Evil 2, but in the main they attack the material with a hefty dose of aggression and leave the impression that these two are seriously not to be fucked with. This is stoner metal for sure, but not in a laid-back, groovy style, but in an, in-your-face, fuck you if you don't like it assured manner.

4/5

Candlemass have a new album due out on 18th of November. Released on Napalm Records it is called Sweet Evil Sun.

Featuring original vocalist Johan Langquist, the only advance track released to date is called Scandinavian Gods:

Conan - Evidence of Immortality (2022)

Released 19 August 2022 on Napalm Records

I've not got much of a history with Conan to be honest. I checked out their debut Monnos a good few years back and didn't care much for it back then, so I went into their latest, Evidence of Immortality, with quite low expectations. Well, I don't know if it's the band who have changed much or me, but I really enjoyed this one and I suspect I will have to go back and re-evaluate my opinion of the Scouse doomsters.

Evidence of Immortality is ultra-heavy, slow-moving stoner doom with anguished vocals that sounds like the result of putting Ufomammut, Electric Wizard and Eyehategod in a blender. Any of the synonyms for crushing could be deployed to describe the album because, make no mistake, this is one heavy motherfuckin' slab of doom metal. There is precious little variety exhibited during the fifty minutes on offer here (at least until the closing track), but I'm pretty sure that if this is your bag then that is no problem for you whatsoever. The performance is pretty tight and Conan seem as capable musically as anyone in the stoner doom scene. The riffs are gargantuan and cavernous, the rhythm section move with the heartbeat of a dreaming Titan and the sludgy vocal bellowings are left to snarl their defiance into the face of an unstoppable force of nature.

Closing track, the fourteen-minute Grief Sequence does throw out a bit of a curveball with a monotonous riff overlaid with swirling, ambient-style keyboards which produce a funeral doom-like effect, at least intially. As the track progresses it gets weirder and more psychotic as effects are introduced that give it a hypnotic, illusory and tripped-out kind of atmosphere, like an acid trip that is just about to turn bad, but it may actually be my favourite track here because it is ridiculously effective at sucking you into it's insanity.

Overall, if you are a fan of Ufomammut or Electric Wizard (especially the earlier material) and dig music that makes you feel like you're being sucked into a black hole, then this should likely be right up your street.

4.5/5

Spiritus Mortis - The Great Seal (2022)

Released 16th September 2022 on Svart Records

Spiritus Mortis are a Finnish doom outfit, formed in 1987 by brothers, guitarist Jussi and bassist Teemu Maijala. They have featured a number of drummers and vocalists, including Sami Hynninen, aka Albert Witchfinder of Reverend Bizarre notoriety, who handled vocal duties from 2009-17 and featured on the band's two previous albums. Despite such a lengthy lifespan, The Great Seal is only the band's fifth full-length. Now, I do enjoy a lot of what Spiritus Mortis do, but I have to concede that they are inconsistent. For me they have been unable to better 2009 's The God Behind the God, the presence of Sami Hynninen elevated the band to another level on that album, especially as it followed the exceedingly disappointing Fallen. 2016's The Year Is One was solid doom metal fayre which failed to ignite the same level of passion as TGBtG despite some decent work from all concerned.

So to current release, The Great Seal, which shows a marked change in style. Here the band have gone for a more epic approach, in the style of Candlemass, which has been facilitated by the addition of vocalist Kimmo Perämäki, formerly of power metal crews Masquerage and Celesty, to replace Sami. He certainly shows off his power metal credentials, particularly on uptempo opener Puputan, so if you are in the market for OTT epic vocals with your doom metal, then this may well be a dose of what you need. I suspect this is the direction the band have wanted to go in for some time, but have had to wait to recruit a vocalist with the skillset and vocal range to pull it off. Much as I love Albert Witchfinder's vocals and prefer them to Kimmo Perämäki's more overblown efforts, this style is technically beyond him and so Spiritus Mortis could never go in this direction while he was behind the mike. The songwriting also seems to have a more pronounced emphasis on melody with a number of the tracks on display here, Martyrdom Operation for instance, exhibiting an almost sing-a-long accessibility and as such it feels like they are aiming for a wider market than that allowed by their previous Reverend Bizarre-influenced trad doom approach. Although this is the case, they don't turn their backs on the traditionalists completely and as the album progresses, it seems to tend more towards the trad style, Khristovovery with it's Sabbathian second half and closing track Are You a Witch, for example, are very much in the vein of their previous material and as such have greater appeal to me personally than the more overblown tracks like Puputan and Martyrdom Operation. The driving short track Vision of Immortality especially, I can imagine being sung by Sami Hynninen, so his influence hasn't been completely erased from Spiritus Mortis' pallette.

It must be said that the band are very tight and the playing sounds technically solid with some mighty riffing and some cool soloing - check out the Sabbath-like riff at the mid-point of Khristovovery and the Tony Iommi-influenced solo that joins it. The rhythm section is functional without being much disposed to showiness and as such provides a solid base for the guitars and vocals to weave their more expansive and theatrical magic. Primarily, if you are more well-disposed to the bombastic stylings of epic doom over the straightforward approach of traditional doom then chances are you may get more out of this than I did. Don't get me wrong, I like a fair bit of what is going on during The Great Seal's forty minutes, but I must admit that I had to work at it over a number of listen-throughs and the album as a whole didn't click with me immediately and I had to find my way in via the trad doom-oriented tracks. I still prefer the two previous releases, but with my well-publicised Reverend Bizarre worship that will come as no surprise to anyone I suspect. With it's almost equal parts traditional and epic doom there is a risk that The Great Seal may fall between two stools, but I suspect the quality is such that doomsters of both persuasions will find enough to enjoy here.

3.5/5

Worm - Bluenothing EP (2022)

Released 28th October 2022 on 20 Buck Spin.

I've been a fan of Worm for a while now and own physical copies of their last two full-length albums, so I went into this 26 minute EP with a degree of anticipation. Well, it seems like this is intended as a bridging piece as the band expand their ever-developing sound even further and marks a significant evolution in their musical development. This latest development seems courtesy of the addition of new guitarist Philippe Tougas (aka Wroth Septentrion) who has replaced Nihilistic Manifesto who was brought in for previous album, Foreverglade, and who has a mean line in guitar hero soloing techniques.

Bluenothing comprises four tracks, by far the longer of which is the opening title track, weighing in at eleven minutes, and which constitutes the highlight of things. It is again based on slow, death doom riffing with deep sonorous growls alternating with black metal-like shrieks for vocals, but it takes on a more expansive dimension with the addition of atmospheric keyboards and, most strikingly, some soaring lead work that seems derived from classic heavy metal or even neoclassical metal axemen, courtesy of Wroth Septentrion. There is a dichotomy at work on the track that comes from the heavy bottom end and growling vocals being heavily contrasted by the washed-out, airiness of the keyboards and the soaring nature of the lead work for a striking layered effect. I get a bit of a My Dying Bride vibe from Bluenothing without the cloying theatricality the Yorkshire gothic death doomers too often revel in.

The other three tracks risk becoming an aside when cast in the shadow of the opener, but Centuries of Ooze II, although shorter, is every bit as dramatic and impressive as the opener. In similar style it utilises the thick, crawling riffs and growling vocals of death doom to provide a base on which to build the track, overlaying this formidable bottom end with atmospheric synths, a clean, chant-like vocal refrain and more of those searing, soaring guitar licks. This does actually sound like an evolution in death doom and Worm seem to have succeeded in carving out a niche for themselves that few others are currently occupying.

The third track, Invoking the Dragonmoon, actually sounds like a demo of the band trying out the new guitar lead style and isn't much more than a bit of a neoclassical exercise in guitar hero hystrionics, but does kind of inform the listener of where the band are coming from and what they are intending to do with it. The closer, Shadowside Kingdom, has an extended atmospheric intro utilising synths, distant-sounding clean vocals, acoustic guitar and more of the new-style lead work before exploding at the halfway mark into a symphonic black metal blast, with more than a nod to the bands origins as a black metal solo project, perhaps as band founder Phantomslaughter says goodbye to that side of the project for good - who knows?

Overall this was an interesting listen as it seems to be teasing a possible new direction for Worm and whilst it has plenty of merit in it's own right, it has opened up more questions than answers and has made me even more impatient for a new Worm full-length to see where all this promise may yet lead us.

4/5

I've been loving this one as well, but I agree in that it's more of an appetizer for what they may have in store in the next year or so. "Bluenothing" is incredibly good but the rest of the tracks kind of just pass by, which makes it hard to judge considering it's still just an EP. I'm glad to hear you're enjoying the new direction as much as I am Sonny since although I still really liked Foreverglade, the bits and bobs they've added here are right up my alley despite veering away from their Death Doom roots. Looking forward to the next one for sure!

4/5 as well

I've been loving this one as well, but I agree in that it's more of an appetizer for what they may have in store in the next year or so. "Bluenothing" is incredibly good but the rest of the tracks kind of just pass by, which makes it hard to judge considering it's still just an EP. I'm glad to hear you're enjoying the new direction as much as I am Sonny since although I still really liked Foreverglade, the bits and bobs they've added here are right up my alley despite veering away from their Death Doom roots. Looking forward to the next one for sure!

4/5 as well

My issue with a lot of neoclassical and guitar hero-like stuff has been that that is all it is, just guitar wankery for the sake of it. Worm however seem to be trying to incorporate it into an extreme metal genre in a way that I personally have never heard before and thus adding a whole new dimension to a genre that I enjoy massively but which is becoming increasingly set in it's ways. Looking forward to hearing how that direction turns out and fingers crossed Worm can make a success of it.

Monolithe - Kosmodrom (2022)

Released 25.11.22 on Bandcamp

Monolithe are not you typical death doom crew, it must be said. The Frenchmen have developed an increasingly progressive aspect to their death doom as their career has developed. They place great significance on song length - their first four albums were fifty-minute plus single track epics, 2015's Epsilon Aurigae and 2016's Zeta Reticuli both contained three tracks, each of exactly fifteen minutes duration, Nebula septem had seven, 7 minute exactly tracks and Okta Khora contained eight tracks of either 4:04, 8:08, 4:08 or 8:04 minutes duration. Kosmodrom continues this idiosyncratic tendency with, of it's five tracks, 1 and 4 are precisely ten minutes, 2 and 3 are 10:30 and the closer, Kosmonavt is exactly 26 minutes. Despite this significance that the band place on precision in track duration, I have never found it to be contrived or constrictive and their music never suffers as a consequence of forcing it into a strictly defined temporal space.

I think it is fair to claim that death doom is a pretty "earthy" style of metal. It often suggests abyssal subterranean chasms or huge, hulking mountain vistas. I know there are the lighter-feeling gothic exponents of death doom, but these still focus on quite primal emotions such as fear and loss. Monolithe however, look outwards and upwards for their inspiration and are one of the few producers of what I would call cosmic death doom. Previous album Okta Khora, for example, was a science fiction concept album about some highly advanced civilisation's unshakeable belief that they must force the universe back into it's original form by destroying everything in it. Not your usual death doom subject matter then? Kosmodrom takes as it's theme the early Soviet pioneers of space flight and the huge risks they faced and sacrifices they made to allow the human race to dream of attaining the stars - again, not exactly your typical death doom aesthetic.

This time around, though, Monolithe have leant more heavily on their earlier death doom style than was employed on their previous couple of releases, integrating the progressive elements within a death doom framework, rather than vice-versa. This may initially come off as something of a backward step, but the progressive elements are worked into the fabric of the tracks so intrinsically that the transition from full-on death doom to lighter, more progressive sections sometimes happens imperceptably, so there is, in reality, more going on within each track than may at first appear - Voskhod suddenly erupts in a clean, melodic riff with a throbbing, electronic feel, the twenty-six minute Kosmonavt takes includes a Cult of Luna-like building, post-metal section and during Kudryavka you suddenly realise you are listening to a Dave Gilmour-like Floydian section after it's hulking death doom beginnings and don't even remember how you got there!

If you are familiar with Monolithe's work to date then the opener, Sputnik-1, may seem to be a bit unexpected, it's heavenly female vocals (provided by Houston alt. pop artist London Lawhon) combined with Rémi Brochard's usual gruff growls, the huge, heaving, yet melodic, main riff and the overlaid keyboards may bring to mind My Dying Bride or the like and their gothic take on death doom and in truth I think it stands up to anything the Yorkshiremen have produced. However, rather than some corny gothic romance for subject matter, it's recalling of the aspirations of the people behind mankind's very first step into space exploration provides a theme I personally am more at home with.

As a whole package, Kosmodrom seems very complete and is so skillfully written and crafted that it throws a lot of recent death doom releases into the shade. Monolithe show that it is no longer enough to just keep knocking out slowed down death metal riffs and throw some deep growls on top to appease the death doom cognoscenti - there is so much more that the style is capable of and the Frenchmen, like those cosmic pioneers are forging onwards and upwards in order to expand the minds of the human race. Please don't misunderstand, Kosmodrom does not want for heaviness either. When it needs to be it is as heavy as you could possibly ever want, it just doesn't live or die solely on it's ability to shake the foundations. I would go as far as touting Monolithe as the death doom version of prime-era Opeth and that is heady praise indeed, so if you are in the market for intelligent, progressive extreme doom metal, then you really should give this a try.

4.5/5

I think I needed more time with this one, as my first listen didn't produce anything spectacular even though I can see where you're coming from, Sonny. It doesn't help that I was pretty lukewarm on Monolithe when Monolithe II was featured for The Fallen, so maybe it's just a stylistic thing about this kind of Death Doom that I can't wrap my head around. I was definitely more engrossed by Kosmodrom due to its more Progressive nature compared to their other albums, so you've convinced me to give it a few more chances rather than just leaving it at being another Monolithe album I don't understand.

As much as I love Monolithe, I certainly don' t take it personally if someone else doesn't have the same view, so I wouldn't beat yourself up over it, Xephyr. It would be a sad and stale world if we all loved the same things and, hey, at least you gave it a chance!