January 2025 Feature Release - The Fallen Edition

So just like that we find that a new month is upon us which of course means that we’ll be nominating a brand new monthly feature release for each clan. This essentially means that we’re asking you to rate, review & discuss our chosen features for no other reason than because we enjoy the process & banter. We’re really looking forward to hearing your thoughts on our chosen releases so don’t be shy.

This month’s feature release for The Fallen has been nominated by myself. It's the brilliant 1992 "Dusk" E.P. from Melbourne doom/death legends diSEMBOWELMENT, a release that is generally overlooked in favour of their classic 1993 "Transcendence into the Peripheral" album but which deserves almost as much praise in my opinion. This record was a genuine life-changer for me so I'd encourage all of our The Fallen members to give it a red-hot crack this month.

https://metal.academy/releases/907

https://open.spotify.com/album/7u4B9Xy4oRShjrioqExWah?si=pGVYvQuoTWG5oXE9wweJIQ

I think I may have a slightly different take to most, but here's my review:

In 1992 diSEMBOWELMENT released this three-track EP of material which would eventually show up again on the band's seminal "Transcendence Into the Peripheral" album, released the following year. The first two tracks, "The Tree of Life and Death" and "A Burial at Ornans" are quite rough and ready and are re-releases of rehearsal demos recorded in March of 1991, with only the last track "Cerulean Transience of All My Imagined Shores" being recorded specifically for release on this EP. I must be honest and admit that I have constantly struggled with the legendary status of "Transcendence Into the Peripheral" and there is something I find much more appealing here, particularly in the stripped-back versions of the first two tracks. Listening to the version of "The Tree of Life and Death" presented here alongside the later version, the drum sound is a lot less prevalent than it is on the album version, sitting more where I would expect it to in the mix of a doom metal album so that when the blastbeats hit they don't swamp everything else like they do on the album version. I think the generally more scuzzy production on the EP suits the material better as well, the heavy echoing effect of the album being unnecessary here, so that it sounds more natural than the album does. "Transcendence..." has a greater clarity for sure, but I am not convinced that that is to the benefit of the material because the foetid, abyssal nature of old-school death doom is really suited to lo-fi production values such as we have here on the EP.

OK, comparisons with it's younger and bigger sibling apart, what do we have here? Well, three fairly lengthy tracks of extreme metal that cover quite a few bases during their runtimes, from blasting death metal, through the hulking, ominous death doom that was taking off big time with certain sections of the early Nineties' extreme metal scene, to something even slower and more morbid-sounding, specifically during "A Burial at Ornans", which foreshadows the funeral doom of Thergothon's "Fhtagn-nagh Yog-Sothoth" demo, still six months in the future. The EP exudes a menace and primally evil aura heightened by Renato Gallina's abyssal demon's low, rumbling growl for a voice which may well induce nightmares in the mentally delicate. The skull-crushing weight of the simple, lumbering riffs may have been one of the heaviest things ever set down on tape up to that point in time, with a disgustingly filthy guitar sound that only adds to this gravitational magnitude. Both "The Tree of Life and Death" and "A Burial at Ornans" feel quite epic, involving multiple tempo changes during their runtimes, but epic in a huge, decayed and rotting carcass kind of way.

The closing track of both this EP and the full-length, "Cerulean Transience of All My Imagined Shores", sounds more like it's later incarnation, minus the opening ambient intro. Obviously recorded at a different time to the first two tracks, it has a much clearer production which gives the lead guitar a chiming, ringing tone in contrast to the deep, bestial roar that passes for vocals and the thundering basswork. The drums are further up the mix than they were on the other tracks, but not to the extent of the album and are perfectly suitable. This is the track more than the others which foreshadows the advent of Funeral Doom on the extreme metal scene, it slowing to barely a crawl at times, predicting the arrival of the likes of Esoteric, who were formed the same year as this came out. Coincidental? I think not!

I am really glad to have had the chance to check this out because it has solved the irksome puzzle as to why I never got on board with "Transcendence Into the Peripheral" when it appears to be right up my street. The answer is, because of the production, which I find to be incredibly jarring, especially the almost St. Anger-level annoying snare sound. The actual material, as presented here on the EP, is excellent, so that is the only explanation for my resistance to the later full-length.

4.5/5

Nice review Sonny. I'm glad you're finally seeing the light too. Here's my review from a while ago:

Being an Australian extreme metal fanatic from way back in the late 1980's, it was perhaps inevitable that I'd possess a strong passion for arguably our most significant metal export (at least from purely an influential & creative sense) in Melbourne's masters of the doom/death sound diSEMBOWELMENT. I'd suggest that very few diehard fans suffer from as complete an infatuation as I do with this band though. I simply worship the ground they walk on & back in the early 1990's I thought of them as being a lot more than mere humans. Without actually knowing the band members, it was very hard for me to envisage them as being every-day people given the remarkably dark, unique & generally foreign sounds they managed to conjure up. I was talking to Bjorn from Grave Upheaval, Grotesque Bliss & Temple Nightside about them the other day & he shares my infatuation to a similar scale so it's not just me. diSEMBOWELMENT had a way of encapsulating everything that was so wonderful about the early 90's extreme metal scene &, to make things even more intense for a young Aussie, they were also from my home country which was a rarity for the elite metal artists in the world at the time. While there's no doubt at all that 1993's "Transcendence Into the Peripheral" album was a game-changer for the global doom/death scene though, for Bjorn & I it was diSEMBOWELMENT's 1992 E.P. "Dusk" that first saw that door opening & I've never felt that it received the respect it deserved because it's a remarkable release in its own right, particularly when you consider that it was the band's first proper release & that there was nothing out there that sounded anything like it at the time.

I was lucky enough to pick up an original copy of the "Dusk" E.P. as well as diSEMBOWELMENT's second demo tape "Deep Sensory Procession Into Aural Fate" by sending cash to the band in the mail. I can't quite remember the timeline for that taking place in respect to "Transcendence Into the Peripheral" but I think it's fair to say that all three releases would be placed on their own individual pedestals in my teenage bedroom from the time they first hit my ears. I even sought out the band's early 1990 "Mourning September" demo tape through the tape trading scene, a release that I found to be pretty decent without ever hinting at the same levels of euphoria as I'd received from diSEMBOWELMENT's subsequent efforts. It's interesting that, despite the clear crossover of material between the three most significant releases, I still think that both of the proper releases should be considered to be essential as they each bring something a little different to the table in terms of timbre & texture. None of them are particularly polished (which I strongly suspect was intentional) but there's definitely enough variation to keep things interesting.

The "Dusk" E.P. is a half-hour long affair that includes what were arguably diSEMBOWELMENT's finest three tracks so how could it not be a completely mind-blowing experience? It opens with the band's calling card in "The Tree of Life & Death", a nine-minute piece that begins with one of diSEMBOWELMENT's more brutal & blasting death metal passages before descending into the mire with some of the darkest extreme doom metal we'd heard to the time. It's a clear indication of the thick, oppressive atmosphere this band was capable of creating even at such an early point in their recording careers. The version we have here is remarkably similar to the one we receive on the debut full-length in September of 1993 too, despite being the same recording that was first birthed on 1991's classic "Deep Sensory Procession Into Aural Fate" demo. This is followed by the epic twelve-minute "Burial at Ornans", another song that was borrowed from the second demo tape & a piece which I feel still had a bit of work to do before reaching its most complete realization on "Transcendence Into the Peripheral". This is the reason for me not being able to reach full marks for "Dusk" actually as "Burial at Ornans" simply feels a little less complete than it would in the near future with some of the less doomy sections not maintaining such an elite level & the track lacking some of the atmospherics that it would gain on the album version. Eight-minute closer "Cerulean Transience of All My Imagined Shores" is another story altogether though & brings with it the most transcendental aura, transporting me to wonderfully dark & obscure places that I'd never imagined existed before. Although I do feel that the album version is a little more polished & complete, this doesn't diminish the impact of what is undeniably one of the earlier examples of the funeral doom metal genre to hit a proper release. The sum of these three classic works leaves me succumbing to pure devastation & infatuation, very much in awe of my elder countrymen.

While "Dusk" may not quite be as fully realized as "Transcendence Into the Peripheral" was, all of the ingredients were already there to see the global metal scene receiving one of the true greats at their chosen craft. I mean, if this had ended up being the only diSEMBOWELMENT release then one gets the feeling that it would have received far more attention & be referenced by a wealth of extreme doom bands as being highly influential. As it stands though, I can't recommend "Dusk" enough. The monstrous vocals of guitarist Renato Gallina are as scary as you'll ever find in music & the instrumentation around them brings to mind the feeling of being a young child lost in the darkest of forests in the blackest of midnights with drummer Paul Mazziotta's blast-beats being used over the slowest, doomiest riffs imaginable in such a fashion that was completely unheard of at the time. The production is absolutely spot-on too, leaving layers of filth & decay in the guitar tone that works to further accentuate the sheer weight on the diSEMBOWELMENT sound. Perhaps I'm biased given my personal interactions with the band at such a young age (even if it was by mail) but I feel that I'm mature enough to be able to see the forest through the trees these days so I implore anyone who thinks bands like Spectral Voice, Winter or diSEMBOWELMENT's younger sibling Inverloch are where it's at to seek out "Dusk" as I have no doubt that you'll be dazzled by what the true masters of the doom/death genre had to offer way back in 1992.

4.5/5