The Death Doom Metal Thread

Tzompantli - Beating the Drums of Ancestral Force (2024)

Beating the Drums of Ancestral Force is the sophomore effort from the Brian Ortiz-led Tzompantli, coming fairly hot on the heels of 2022's debut Tlazcaltiliztli. I had a lot of time for the debut and it's brutal-sounding Autopsy-influenced version of death metal, so went into this with a great deal of expectation. Thankfully the debut was no fluke and this is even better in my opinion, being a more-rounded and, with it's greater length, a more developed release. What distinguishes Tzompantli from their Autopsy-worshipping peers is that Brian Ortiz digs deeply into his Indiginous American heritage with its death whistles and pounding, tribal rhythms which manages to imbue an already brutal sound with an even greater level of vicious savagery. This is death doom that is red in tooth and claw, you can almost smell the blood as war club and spear do battle. Ortiz has brought in a number of new members to help out with the folk instrumentation, with the band swelling its ranks to a whopping ten musicians, but it was well worth it as the folk elements have been incorporated seamlessly into the overall sound and give it an extra dimension that enhances it's inherent brutality.

From what I can gather the album's concept tells of the historic indiginous American tribes' ultimately doomed struggle against european invaders. From the portentious omens of forthcoming doom displayed in opener Tetzahuitl, the ritual exhortations to the Ancestors of "Tlaloc icuic" and the brutal, chaotic, war-like pounding of "Chichimecatl" or "Tetzaviztli" right up to and including the final heartbreaking sorrow of defeat as expressed in the lengthy closer, "Icnocuicatl", the concept is gloriously expounded upon, but the narrative is handled so adeptly so as not to compromise the music in any way.

Getting down to Tzompantli's core sound reveals a penchant for old-school doomy death metal that is not exactly rare nowadays. I often see Japan's Coffins referenced in relation to Ortiz's band and, as far as the band's fundamentals go, I think that is a fair comparison. That said though, I think the adroit handling of the folk instrumentation and the careful attention to the atmospherics gives Tzompantli enough of a distinguishing feature to make them stand apart in a crowded scene. Exactly how brutal-sounding this is cannot be underestimated, with its throbbing, ultra-heavy riffs, ritualistic tribal rhythms and Ortiz' wounded bull-like, bellowing roar, at it's heart this is savage and primal OSDM with a hefty death doom component that is threatening and exhilharating in equal measure and will bludgeon its way under your skin, remaining in memory well after the final notes have faded.

4/5

Nice! I'll be adding that one to my list then after thoroughly enjoying 2022's "Tlazcaltiliztli" debut album. :)

Enchantment - "Dance the Marble Naked" (1994)

I hadn't heard of English doom/death outfit Enchantment before when my younger brother Ben brought home of copy of their debut album "Dance the Marble Naked" back in 1994. We were both massively into the then thriving doom/death metal scene & would often surprise each other with new & exciting releases from faraway lands that ticked all of our preferred boxes, often after purchasing them cold or based purely on word of mouth or cover artwork. I think "Dance the Marble Naked" was probably a record store recommendation as the latest release from the metal subgenre that Ben was most passionate about at the time & I say this with a level of confidence because there's a definite flaw with Enchantment's first-up effort that I know frustrates Ben & would likely have prevented him from laying down his cold hard cash had he been given the opportunity to investigate the album's contents prior to making his purchase. I wasn't sure how big a role that flaw was going to play in my first revisit to this record since the 1990's but it's safe to say that I was a little guarded while going into listen number one this week.

"Dance the Marble Naked" was recorded at Academy Studios, West Yorkshire in February 1994 with Peaceville Records founder Hammy handling the production duties & doing a fine job of it too. Hammy had already produced a string of high-quality extreme metal releases from bands like Anathema, Autopsy, My Dying Bride & Paradise Lost so his credentials were pretty much perfect for the task at hand & you can hear a clear proficiency in the way he goes about his craft here with the album sounding crisp, clear & heavy. Enchantment had picked up a six-album deal with Century Media Records off the back of their 1993 "A Tear for Young Eloquence" demo tape which I've not heard before. Sadly though, they'd only get the chance to fulfill just the one record before unceremoniously splitting up, a state they'd remain in until they joined the modern trend of old 80's & 90's metal bands reforming many years later in 2019. They've since gone on to record their sophomore album "Cold Soul Embrace" a full twenty-eight years after "Dance the Marble Naked" first hit the streets but I'm yet to hear that particular release, perhaps due to my recollections of the struggles I experienced with the debut so many years ago.

Enchantment's sound was not anything new for the doom/death scene. In fact, it was very much in line with what we'd already grown to know & love from the Peaceville Three with much more time spent on emulation than genuine creation. There are so many familiar moments on "Dance the Marble Naked" but the execution is nothing short of excellent so it's hard to be too critical, despite the regular feelings of deja vu I experienced throughout my three listens over the last few days. Enchantment rarely stray from the tried-&-tested doom/death model much either, although there are moments when they hit on a more classic death metal riff & head down that road for a while before reverting back to a doomier model. The gothic edge that their fellow countrymen had become known for is readily available here with the clean spoken word sections having clearly been borrowed from My Dying Bride's Aaron Stainthorpe & being quite effective too. Instrumental closer "Meadows" is the only track that deviates from the self-imposed confines of Enchantment's subgenre of choice as it takes more of a Smashing Pumpkins-style alternative rock direction & does it pretty proficiently too, making for a pleasant end to an otherwise consistently depressive doom/death record.

Now, that all sounds generally positive, doesn't it? But let's get to the elephant in the room which is front man Paul Jones & his cringe-inducing death bellows. I've heard a lot of death growls & grunts over the years but rarely have I heard them sound like this, nor have I wanted them too. Jones sounds completely out of his depth as he fumbles his way through a succession of forced & incompetent accompaniments to some otherwise more than serviceable instrumentation. Some tracks display his failing worse than others but even the stronger material included is considerably less effective for his involvement & I struggle to see how his band mates managed put up with him for so long to be honest. Actually, if I had to guess as to why Enchantment ended up splitting so early in their recording contract then I'd likely find myself pointing directly at poor Paul. It's a real shame because the other four band members do an excellent job here & show themselves to have a very solid understanding of what made the early 90's doom/death scene so exciting. If the band had of opted for almost any other death growler then I think they could have been quite successful, even if they had missed the boat a little bit by arriving on the scene a few years too late to be discussed in the same terms as the founding godfathers of their sound. The fact that none of the other band members would go on to contribute anything else of note to the metal world makes this an even greater tragedy.

"Dance the Marble Naked" includes eight songs & spans around 43 minutes in length with only one track (i.e. "God Send") having been re-recorded from the "A Tear for Young Eloquence" demo tape. The album opens with its clear highlight track in "Kneading with Honey" which left me with some hope for an improved experience this time, despite Jones' obvious failings. Sadly though, things would descend fairly quickly from there with only the previously mentioned "God Send" & "Meadows" offering me much in the way of appeal as I was simply unable to see past the uncomfortable feelings that Jones' inadequacies instilled in me. "Of Acorns That Gather" is a particularly hard pill to swallow but most of the other material showed great promise, only to see Enchantment's dreams of underground success unceremoniously dumped into a bottomless pit by their unforgiveable selection of Jones as their front man.

Ben has often mentioned "Dance the Marble Naked" as the finest example during discussions about otherwise high-quality records that have been completely ruined by some inappropriate vocals & I'm afraid that I have to agree on this occasion. Unfortunately, I don't think that this will end up being a matter of personal taste though & I challenge any doom/death tragic to say that they can accept this flaw that has ended up being a complete deal-breaker for me. The fact that the album has still achieved a reasonable score is simply a reflection of how competent the rest of the band are as well as how well produced Enchantment's debut was.

For fans of Castle, Anathema & My Dying Bride.

3/5

In early 1994, I made my way to Sandy's Records in Dee Why on the Northern Beaches (which is astonishingly still there) to try to find a new metal album to purchase. The guy behind the counter seemed to enjoy bringing metal albums into the store and while I imagine there were a few other metal fans in our area, I have to think he did this mostly for Daniel and I. On this particular day he offered up two death doom releases, being Enchantment's Dance the Marble Naked and Anathema's Serenades. I can't recall whether I listened to either of them before deciding, but somehow I ended up leaving the store with Enchantment in my hands. This would be one of many bad decisions that I would make as a teenager, and after a couple of days of gritting my teeth while trying to enjoy fairly decent death doom despite the fucking atrocious vocals, I made my way back to the store and picked up Serenades. That album quickly became a favourite for me and dare I say even more so for Daniel, so all is well that ends well I guess.

My Dying Bride - "I Am The Bloody Earth" E.P. (1994)

By the time 1994 rolled around, Ben & I would have to have been considered to be enormous My Dying Bride fanboys. I was hooked from the first few seconds of the title track from the Halifax doom/death legends' 1992 "Symphonaire Infernus Et Spera Empyrium" E.P. & had religiously followed everything they'd done since with Ben even claiming them to be his favourite band at the time. I still consider that E.P. as well as the three releases that followed it (i.e. debut album "As the Flower Withers", 1993's "The Thrash of Naked Limbs" E.P. & their career-defining sophomore album "Turn Loose the Swans") to be genuine extreme metal classics so there was a whole world of anticipation around the release of My Dying Bride's next release which ended up being the third in the trilogy of annual E.P.'s the band would produce. I remember it being another rewarding experience too but I can't say that I've ever placed "I Am The Bloody Earth" alongside those earlier classics for one reason or another, despite returning to it a number of times over the years. Let's take a look at why.

As with the "Symphonaire Infernus Et Spera Empyrium" & "The Thrash of Naked Limbs" E.P's, "I Am The Bloody Earth" contains just the three tracks. The title track & the remixed version of "The Crown of Sympathy" (i.e. one of the absolute stunners from "Turn Loose The Swans") were recorded as a part of the album sessions at Academy Studios in Wolverhampton during June & July of 1993 with producer Robert Magoolagan (aka Mags). The other inclusion (a lengthy dance remix track by the name of "Transcending (Into the Exquisite)") was created at Finsbury Street Studios in York some time afterwards. When listening to the three tracks back-to-back, there's a clear separation between them in that they all come at you from different angles. Mags was starting to make a name for himself as a metal producer following his work on Anathema's first couple of records & 1994 would be a big year for him with his name being attached to Cradle of Filth's "The Principles of Evil Made Flesh" debut album & Solstice's "Lamentations" as well as engineering credits on Enchantment's "Dance the Marble Naked" & Paradise Lost's "Seals the Sense" E.P. so he was definitely building himself a reputation. "Turn Loose the Swans" turned out brilliantly too with his co-production arrangement with My Dying Bride appearing to work a treat. The same can be said for the two doom/death tracks included here as they both sound very much like the My Dying Bride that had completely annihilated us all the previous year. I do have one issue with the remix of "The Crown of Sympathy" though & I apologize for mentioning it if it forever scars your listening experience moving forward. For some inexplicable reason, the snare drum has had some reverb & panning done to it that makes it stand out like a sore thumb. It's not enough to impact my love of the overall track but it does take just a touch of gloss off what should have been musical perfection as far as I'm concerned. "Transcending (Into the Exquisite)" is another story altogether though as it represents one of the bigger challenges that any remixer has had to face in terms of metal.

Let me be very clear, my love of "I Am The Bloody Earth" & "The Crown of Sympathy (Remix)" is everlasting & undying. Both clearly articulate the magic of My Dying Bride in their prime & are classics in their own right. In fact, listening back now, I find it surprising that the title track wasn't deemed to be a strong enough fit for "Turn Loose the Swans" because it's a doom/death classic in every respect. It probably wouldn't have sat amongst the very best few tracks but I enjoy it a little more than I do opener "Sear Me MCMXCIII" if I'm being honest so I think it could have made the album even better. All of the ingredients are there from the melancholic atmosphere to the intimidating death growls to the heart-wrenching guitar harmonies to the gorgeous violin melodies, this is classic My Dying Bride in all their glory. "The Crown of Sympathy" may well be my favourite song from my favourite My Dying Bride release too so it was always likely to float my boat in a slightly different arrangement. The differences from the original are only subtle here with the track duration having been slightly reduced & some haunting echoes having been added here & there for added mystery. Despite my qualms with the snare drum, I absolutely adore this track & place it right up there with the greats of the genre. It's the dance remix piece that is the real talking point here though & I feel that I'm well positioned to discuss its merits given my background as a techno DJ. Look, I think it's fair to say that the majority of extreme metal fanatics were always going to struggle with this concept even if it was done splendidly but what we receive is very much a dog's breakfast. The arrangement sounds jerky & unfocused with the beats having been poorly integrated & the electronic splashes coming across as abrupt & off-putting. It's not an absolute abomination but it is a significant disappointment that has single-handedly caused My Dying Bride to descend from the realms of unanimous perfection to more human territories. I can't imagine how Aaron & co. must have felt upon hearing this piece for the first time because I can't see them being fans of its industrial metal meets electro-industrial approach.

There are those that can be pretty harsh on "I Am The Bloody Earth" based purely on the inclusion of "Transcending (Into the Exquisite)" & the fact that the remix track isn't all that different to the original. Personally, I choose to rate each release based purely on the quality of the music included on that release while ignoring the perceived value for money aspect that may impact listeners who are well across the rest of a band's back catalogue. With that in mind, "The Crown of Sympathy (Remix)" has only been received positively by this MDB fanboy but I can't deny that the dance remix has tainted the holistic package, particularly given its length. I still very much enjoy my time with this E.P. but I can't say that I regard it as being on the same level as the band's earlier work when it contains a nine-minute piece that I'd rather forget.

For fans of Paradise Lost, Novembers Doom & early Anathema.

4/5

Monolithe - Black Hole District (2024)

Black Hole District is french doomsters Monolithe's tenth album and marks yet another step in the band's musical and conceptual development. There is a narrative structure to the album, with the story taking influence from science fiction sources such as Blade Runner and Dark City. The story's protagonist, living on an Earth that faces annihilation due to the Moon having left it's orbit and falling inwards towards the planet, discovers, by a convoluted series of events, that he is in reality an android, not a human and this discovery looks set to cost him his life as the powers-that-be seek to terminate him for his knowledge.

The band have always made a "thing" of the track timings on their releases, which ties into their concepts, with Black Hole District's ten tracks alternating between one-minute instrumentals and exactly ten-minute long main tracks. Thankfully, as is always the case with the band, the specificity of the track timings doesn't feel forced and they never feel over-extended or truncated to accomodate these timings. I have a feeling that the band see themselves as storytellers every bit as much as musicians nowadays and, to this end, they have incorporated even more progressive elements into their music to the point where the progressive and the doomy are now held in perfect balance. This balance allows them the freedom to convincingly weave epic science-fiction tales without compromising on the inate heaviness of death doom metal, which is still, despite all the progressive flourishes, the heart and soul of Monolithe's sound.

A new element they have brought in, presumably specific to this story, is 80's style synths, in particular they have used the Yamaha CS-80 popularised by Vangelis, who is particularly influential here, especially (but not exclusvely) on the one-minute interludes which act as intros to the five main tracks, each one sounding like a snippet from the Greek's Blade Runner soundtrack. They have also brought in guest vocalist Frédéric Gervais of french progressive black metallers Orakle to provide clean vocals alongside new guitarist and vocalist Quentin Verdier's deathly growls, which gives the album a nice textural variation, vocally. Alongside the vocals a number of spoken word sections serve to advance the story and act as introductions to the events of the main tracks.

All this is the vision of the main man behind Monolithe, guitarist and keyboard player, Sylvain Bégot, who is the person solely responsible for all the band's songwriting and lyrics since their earliest days. I think that Sylvain's single-minded control of the artistic input imparts a cohesive consistency to Monolithe's output that may have become diluted by more diverse inputs. It has been obvious since the first album that, similarly to Ivar Bjørnson with Enslaved, Bégot's vision has always been beyond the boundaries of the genre conventions within which he works, even as he has no wish to completely set those conventions aside. He has now become exceedingly effective in how he weaves the doom and progressive aspects together and produces legitimately progressive doom metal as a result, with very few peers in the field. He is now able to convincingly produce a cinematic version of doom metal, that is able to impart the emotional and atmospheric highs and lows of great cinema. The poignancy of the closing track, "Those Moments Lost in Time", for example, is heart-wrenching, despite the heavy, looming main riff, as it references the Blade Runner death scene of Rutger Hauer's Roy Batty.

Black Hole District may not be unrelentingly heavy enough for some death doom acolytes, but for doomsters who love a cinematically conceptual tale, musically well-told with exemplary musicianship and songwriting then Monolithe are very much at the head of the pack. Although Blood Incantation will take all the plaudits for 2024 in this field for their new album, I don't think anyone should dismiss Black Hole District's claim to progressive extreme metal's science fiction concept album of the year.

4.5/5