What Are You Listening To Now - The Fallen Edition

Finally I got round to reviewing Swallow the Sun's gut-wrenching latest album, Moonflowers. I think it is a classic of gothic death doom and just drips with sorrow, mourning and futility, but also contains an enormous amount of beauty too.

Upsidedown Cross - Upsidedown Cross (1991)

An album that is every bit as unhinged as it's cover suggests. Doom/sludge/noise with huge fucking helpings of acid, smack and coke to boot!

Penance - The Road Less Travelled (1992)

Debut album from Penance, a Pittsburgh traditional doom band formed from the ashes of legendary thrash/doom outfit Dream Death. Crunchy, Sabbathian riffs with a vocalist who sounds surprisingly like Tom Araya. Not the most sophisticated album ever, but pretty cool if you are a doom metal fanatic (like me).

Internal Void - Standing on the Sun (1992)

As you may have guessed by my last couple of posts, I'm currently on an early nineties doom metal trip and in Standing on the Sun I think I may have found one of my favourite examples of that genre. If you dig on the grooves of The Obsessed, Saint Vitus or Pentagram then you really need to get onto this.

Celeste - Assassine(s) (2022)

I am not at all familiar with Celeste, so cannot speak for their earlier releases, but Assassine(s) inhabits the shadowy borderland between black metal and atmospheric sludge metal. The blackened vocals add a savagery to the lush-sounding atmo-sludge that lends the music a desperate edge and the oftimes intense riffing can make it sound rawer than you would expect to hear from the likes of Cult of Luna or Isis. It does lack the extended build-ups and crescendos that some of the more successful atmospheric sludge acts excel in and, in truth, perhaps sounds a bit one-note for it. Although I appreciate the skill on display here and can hear why this could be very popular indeed, it doesn't exactly tick all my boxes and so I can't engage with it on the same level as I'm sure many others may. That doesn't mean it's not a good album, indeed I did enjoy it quite a bit, but only really on a surface level and I must admit that it didn't get under my skin the way I suspect it may for others more susceptible to it's charms.
3.5/5

Firebreather - Dwell in the Fog (2022)

Firebreather are a Gothenburg stoner three-piece and Dwell in the Fog is their third full-length since forming in 2016. They play a heavy stoner metal with plenty of doom influence and an extra layer of heaviness added by incorporating a bit of Mastodon-like sludge, the most obvious comparison being High on Fire. It's not especially original but it is well done and undoubtedly it is heavy as fuck. It's six tracks all hover around the six minute mark with the album clocking in at just under forty minutes - a perfect length for an album of this type I would suggest. If you are a fan of well made, ultra-heavy stoner music looking for a new jam then Firebreather may well tick all your boxes.

4/5

Lord Mountain - The Oath (2023)

Lord Mountain are a four-piece from Santa Rosa, California who have a really nice trad doom sound. They released a solid four-track ep in 2016, which was then re-released as a split album with Oakland doomsters, Mesmer. Now 2023 sees the release of their debut full-length, The Oath. If, like me, you are a fan of traditional doom with a stoner twist, then The Oath should hold at least some appeal for you. These guys aren't trying to reinvent the wheel, but are taking a tried and tested recipe and producing a tasty treat for anyone who likes this particular flavour of doom metal. The Oath has an excellent guitar tone, with just the right amount of distortion and a satisfying depth that really ticks my boxes. The riffs are suitably weighty and are fairly memorable in the main, sometimes straying into heavy metal territory when the pace picks up and there is also some quite tasty lead work - such as during second track, The Giant. The rhythm section is clear as a bell with a throbbing bass and a drummer who is exceedingly competent without being flashy. The vocals are pretty decent, albeit functional, as they are in a lot of traditional doom (it is very rare for a trad doom outfit to have really outstanding vocalist) but they suit the material perfectly well and are possibly even above average for this style of doom metal.

Reading this back it feels a little bit like damning with faint praise but, believe me, Lord Mountain have released a really nice slab of trad doom here and although it makes no attempt to rewrite any of the rules it is highly enjoyable and should appeal to any fans of trad doom who just want another quality fix of the doomy stuff.

4/5

Amenra - Mass III (2005)

Paradise Lost - The Plague Within (2015)

My first experience of Paradise Lost was when I bought their "Icon" album years ago when I saw it cheap on CD. Well, I didn't take to that album at all and as a consequence PL went onto my shitlist and I didn't pay them any mind for the longest time. However Nick Holmes popped up on 1914's superb "Where Fear and Weapons Meet" album and I was struck by how fantastic his voice sounded, so I became determined to give Paradise Lost another go. This time I went with their much-praised "Gothic" album which I found to be much more palatable. So now, after listening to another couple of earlier releases, I have arrived at 2015's "The Plague Within" and I must admit that Paradise Lost's redemption in my mind is complete because this album is fantastic. Whopping great doom riffs and Holmes' awesome vocals coupled with a superb production job that gives the guitars an unbelievable heft all make for a disc that is right up my street. There's a decent variation in pacing too, from the doominess of Victim of the Past to the out and out death metal riffing of Flesh From Bone that ensure that things never get too predictable. I think this is destined to be my favourite PL album.

4.5/5

High On Fire - De vermis mysteriis (2012)

I have only really had a passing relationship with Oakland's High On Fire to date. I don't know why particularly as I have enjoyed the couple of albums I have heard previously, Blessed Black Wings and Death Is This Communion. Both of those were from the mid-2000's and so I have jumped forward a few years to 2012's De vermis mysteriis. There is no great divergence from the earlier albums and it consists once more of HOF's sludgy take on stoner metal. Most of the tracks fall into one of two camps, either pretty fast-paced, almost thrashy, stoner metal with a hard edge or a more doomy, slower take where the sludginess is more to the fore. The production of the album was handled by Converge's Kurt Ballou and he has done a bang-up job as the sound is super thick whilst still maintaining a superb clarity where every nuance of the instrumentation can be heard clearly, the drums and bass are beefy-sounding and certainly provide a solid foundation for the guitar work, whether it be the fast, intense riffing of tracks like Bloody Knuckles and the title track, or the more considered and heavier-sounding, slower riffs of Madness of an Architect or Romulus and Remus. It is unsurprisingly this slower material that I prefer, it sounding more intense and crushing than the thrashier stuff.

Overall this is a pretty solid album that does have a superb production job and while the tracks all possess the requisite heaviness and there are no duds, I'm not convinced that any of them are super-standout either.

3.5/5

I absolutely love "De vermis mysteriis" Sonny & regard it as one of the top few stoner metal releases I've encountered over the years. But then... I'm an absolute tragic for production jobs like that one.

I absolutely love "De vermis mysteriis" Sonny & regard it as one of the top few stoner metal releases I've encountered over the years. But then... I'm an absolute tragic for production jobs like that one.

It IS a good record and it may be that I need a bit more time with it, but none of the tracks really jumped out and grabbed me by the throat on those first couple of listens. But, as I said in my short review, the production job is excellent. More stoner albums could do with a production job that heavy. On the evidence of this, I would really like to hear Kurt Ballou produce a Ufomammut album.

I've actually only listened to the most recent High On Fire album from 2018, somehow I didn't realize they were so prolific and will definitely have to go back and check out some of their other stuff. Hell, I even saw them live and for some reason never went past the one album they were touring for. 

Paradise Lost - Medusa (2017)

This week I have been deving a little further into Paradise Lost's discography, with particular emphasis on their later material. I really enjoyed 2015's The Plague Within, but I think that 2017's Medusa may be even better. For the Yorkshiremen to still be able to crank out an album this good after 30 years in the business is impressive by anyone's standards. There are some absolutely brilliant tracks on display here, the opening brace of Fearless Sky and Gods of Ancient is a killer way to kick off a doom metal album. Even the more overtly gothic-tinged tracks are great and that's not something you hear me say too often. I'm gonna spend a little more time with this over the next few weeks, but I am already eyeing a 4.5/5.

Sunn O))) - Life Metal (2019)

I've had this one on the back burner for ages now, so decided now was the time to turn the heat up on it. It is Sunn O))), so there is unlikely to be a verdict from me anytime soon as this is not immediate music and I'll need a little while with it first.

Edit: After a couple of run-throughs I am loving this and I am going with a placeholding 4.5/5 for the time being.

My Dying Bride - As the Flower Withers (1992)

Me and MDB have a bit of a chequered past. When I was returning to metal in the early 2000s I got hold of mp3 rips of the band's complete discography up to that point (which was up to and including The Dreadful Hours, I think) and I was pretty keen on the Yorkshiremen's sound back then. However, I was playing catch up on the best part of a decade's metal development, during one of it's most evolutionary periods and I found myself exploring alleys and byways that took me further and further from the gothic musings of bands like My Dying Bride and into pastures new. My taste has mutated to such a degree that I am decidedly antipathetical towards what I often now view as the pantomime antics of a lot of gothic and gothic-tinged metal and, unfortunately, MDB singer Aaron Stainthorpe often makes me shake my head at his, what seem to me to be, OTT gothic tendencies, sounding sometimes like he has eaten a full set of Anne Rice novels and washed them down with a collection of Byron's poetry! Contrary to appearances otherwise, I don't hate My Dying Bride, far from it, but I just wish they would rein it in a bit sometimes.

So I decided to go back to MDB's debut full-length in the hopes of rekindling some of that affection I had for them a couple of decades ago now.  I welcome the fact that the album lacks a lot of the overt gothicness (gothicicity?) of a lot of their later material and has quite a raw production. I think it safe to file this under death doom rather than gothic death doom and it even dallies with out and out death metal in places, The Forever People, for example. The more epic tracks such as Sear Me and The Return of the Beautiful, whilst bearing a similar structure to later epics, don't become bogged down by excess gothic window dressing and so retain a vitality and immediacy that a lot of MDB's more grandiose stuff just doesn't possess. They sound like a much more interesting prospect with this stripped-back production style and despite the sparseness of the production they still manage to sound gloriously melancholic. It is as if without all the technical shenanigans and enhanced studio techniques they have to rely more heavily on good, old-fashioned musical ability and songwriting. Generally Stainthorpe sticks to a gruff death metal growl and thankfully we don't get much of the laconic, world-weary vocal style he resorts to in later works that is always guaranteed to wind me up. The guitar riffs are thick and heavy and carry most of the album with their melancholy melodicism and intermittent bursts of aggression. The violin is employed on much rarer occasions than during your average, later MDB album and so is more effective when it does make it's presence felt.

Overall I enjoyed this a lot more than I thought I might and this rawer side of My Dying Bride is something I would have loved to have heard more of. I guess this is not a popular opinion, but this is right up there as one of my favourite MDB albums.

4/5

Windhand - Windhand (2012)

I am a real sucker for female-voiced stonerised doom metal and one of the prime exponents of the sub-sub-genre is Richmond's Windhand. The self-titled is their debut album from 2012 and it knocked me out when I heard it and it still holds it's power over me to this day. The guitar sound is immense and the riffs are absolutely monumental, like an earthquake in a thunderstorm and when Dorthia Cotterell's otherworldly vocals soar above this sonic devastation, I am in doom metal heaven. There is much competition in this field, but with this and even more so it's follow-up, Windhand have entrenched themselves firmly at the head of the field.

4.5/5

Godthrymm - Distortions (2023)

Godthrymm's newest album just came out last week and it's more of what you'd expect from the band, but at the same time I'd expect nothing less. So far this one is just as quality as their first, so if Sonny hasn't seen that this one dropped yet I'd highly recommend to check it out. 

Jesu - Jesu (2004)

I've not listened to Jesu before and, to be honest, it's a little bit more shoegazey sounding than I would normally enjoy, but for some reason I found it exceedingly listenable.

Godthrymm - Distortions (2023)

Godthrymm's newest album just came out last week and it's more of what you'd expect from the band, but at the same time I'd expect nothing less. So far this one is just as quality as their first, so if Sonny hasn't seen that this one dropped yet I'd highly recommend to check it out. 

Only just seen this post today, Xephyr. I will definitely check it out as I enjoyed the first album quite a bit.

Mournful Congregation - The Exuviae of Gods Part 2 (2023)

A year on from the release of the wonderful Part I, Mournful Congregation unveil the second part of The Exuviae of Gods EPs. Of course both EPs are album length for most bands, each weighing in at almost forty minutes, but that is short for this particular band. In common with Part I, Part II contains a re-recording of a track from their 1995 An Epic Dream of Desire cassette demo, this time around opener Heads Bowed being the track getting a makeover.

Whilst Mournful Congregation are absolutely practitioners of that most sorrowful of all doom metal sub-genres, funeral doom, what they do better than virtually every other band is imbue their funereal dirges with a sliver of light and hope. They definitely conjure up a sorrowful, mournful atmosphere with their music, but they always seem to be able to add a wistfulness that says, yes, death has come, but fear not, death is not the end. I am not at all a religious or even a particularly spiritual person, but there is something about Mournful Congregation's music that always makes me feel less oppressed by the thought of life's inevitable ending. Fortunately the band are also able to deliver this ray of hopefulness without ever compromising on sheer crushing weight, the reworking of Heads Bowed being a prime example, it's heaving weight being countered by the lightness of the acoustic guitar intro and outro that bookend the track.

The second and shortest track, the sub-nine minutes, The Forbidden Abysm, has more of a death doom vibe about it, being the "fastest" and heaviest track on display here and is pretty decent, although the least interesting of the three. Closer, The Paling Crest, weighing in at eighteen minutes, is the real heart of the album and the EP's standout piece. Beginning with an acoustic guitar and harmonised clean, choral-type vocal intro complete with a soaring electric lead solo, it segues into the track proper with Ben Petch's abyssal growls being accompanied by leaden chords and more of those soaring guitars, backed by a subtle application of keyboards. Around mid-point this subsides and is replaced by a light and airy, picked acoustic melody that is itself swept away as the heaviness returns, albeit with a more hopeful atmosphere permeating the hulking chords. Lyrically the band seem to back this up, with Petch intoning that "Fear of death is fear of wisdom" and "Fear of natural order is fear of nature itself, For death is merely the consequence of birth", the implication being, "So what are you worrying for?"

I am a massive fan of the sorrowful and heart-wrenching heaviness of funeral doom, but there is something very appealing about Mournful Congregation's wistful acceptance of the inevitability of death and the absolute conviction that it is nothing to be feared, which comes across not only lyrically, but also in the atmospheres they create with gorgeous, airy melodies being woven into their heavier backdrops of mournful sorrow to lend their music a positivity lacking in so much doom metal. I slightly prefer last year's Part 1 of the Exuviae of Gods EPs over this, but it is still a fine release and one I would have no reservations about recommending.

4/5

Ken mode - "VOID" (2023)

Since writing the below review back in October this year I have added VOID to my vinyl shelves and today marks its first spin.

Sitting completely off my radar for most of their discography to date, KEN mode came up in a random playlist this week and I found myself intrigued by their clear blend of core infused sludge that seems to have a constant threat of exploding into some mathy chaos. Grateful that this possibility is never realised VOID plays to the more appealing elements of how I like my sludge; reminiscent of Kowloon Walled City who I also stumbled across randomly.

This thoughtful and mature edge to VOID bleeds through on tracks such as These Wires which is an exhausting and emotionally charged near eight minutes of turbulent percussion and boisterous vocals tempered by the gradual build of the instrumental track (a la Russian Circles), We’re Small Enough that immediately follows it. Unafraid to bring the noise though, the crazed jazzy ending to I Cannot shows the versatility of KEN mode perfectly. Whatever track you listen to on the album you cannot deny how emotionally supercharged the whole thing is and the elements of control that are deployed on that energy make for a very interesting listen overall.

Whilst there is a sense of fight to the record, there is a frustrating futility to that conflict, an underlying tone of defeat being known but the level of tenacity in the energy of the tracks refuses to admit defeat. Monotone bass lines and an often-deployed plodding rhythm compliment the dark edge to the lyrics well without ever making for dull or lifeless compositions either. There is a level of intrigue that I maintain in listening to this record that I do not often find with most releases nowadays. VOID certainly has something to say but it is not limiting itself to shouting in my face, nor is it hiding behind conjecture either.

Not all elements work for me. The spoken word on Not Today, Old Friend certainly play to the aesthetic of the song but just feel out of place still somehow. The more noise rock portions of KEN mode are the more challenging for me overall even though they do tangle the most intricate of webs that I do still have to acknowledge the talent behind the creation thereof.

4.5/5

Faetooth - Remnants of the Vessel (2022)

Female "fairydoom" project out of Los Angeles.  I would suggest it to be a blend of doom and sludge if (like me) you find "fairydoom" to be an unhelpful term.

Benthic Realm - Vessel (2023)

I have been a fan of Krista Van Guilder's turns in bands like Warhorse and Second Grave for some time now and was very contented with the direction of latest band Benthic Realm as indicated by their first couple of EPs released in 2017/18. However things had gone quiet on the BR front while the world battled the Covid-19 pandemic, but now they are back with their debut full-length, five years after their last EP hit the shelves. Well, the band have certainly not been sitting back and I've got to say up front, this is possibly my favourite release from bands Krista has been involved in. The guitar sound is perfect for this style of doom metal, with a powerful, booming tone that imparts a huge amount of heft to the riffs. The bass and drums provide a rock solid foundation upon which these booming riffs are built, providing a dense, all-enveloping quality to the sound. Then over all this soars the heavenly vocals of Krista herself. These aren't the ephemeral, airy vocals associated with a lot of female singers in the doom metal scene, but powerful and authoritative with a gorgeous tone that perfectly complements the weight of the riffs with a strength of their own, providing both melody and power in equal measure.

The songwriting is very good also, being instantly relatable to any doom metal veteran fan, whilst still retaining a vibrancy and identity very much of their own. No, Benthic Realm don't throw away the doom metal rulebook, but they are so proficient as songwriters and performers that Vessel sounds anything but tired and derivative, feeling like a shot in the arm to a scene that often retreads old ground with solid, but indistinguishable releases. If you only listen to one female-fronted doom metal album this year then you could do much worse than grab a copy of Vessel.

4/5