Review by Sonny for Deathbell - A Nocturnal Crossing (2022)

I enjoyed French doom outfit Deathbell's debut album, 2018's With the Beyond, very much, it's female-voiced stoner vibe akin to Windhand and Alunah, bands I am a big fan of, so I have been anticipating a follow-up for some time now and at last here it is. Called A Nocturnal Crossing, the albums six tracks span a touch over forty minutes. It opens up with a great slab of uptempo stoner doom called The Stronghold and the Archer which gets the album off to a fantastic start and may well be my favourite track, it has a memorable melody and a strong central riff with some soaring keyboard work and singer Lauren Gaynor's vocals are strong enough to carry the song well. This is followed by Devoured on the Peak which is similar, but with more of a bluesy influence, a direction that Deathbell like to take fairly regularly with their doom and that will become even more pronounced later in the album. The single, The Ladder, at eight and a half minutes is the longest track here and is a bit more ambitious with more variation in pacing, some effective keyboard work and a nice guitar workout towards the end. The second half of the album continues in similar vein and closes with the title track, which is arguably the album's heaviest, it is another track with a blues influence and an extended guitar workout, although it does seem to end a bit abruptly.

There is an aspect to the band, I think the cumulative effect of the guitar work and the distant yet strong vocals that lend the tracks a kind of psychedelic-gothic edge but that doesn't detract from the stoner vibes either. There does seem to have been some progression since the debut with the band pushing at the boundaries of what they do, introducing a more progressive sound especially with a greater emphasis on the keyboards for example, without any serious wholesale changes to their overall sound, but coming at it with a freshness and ambition that makes it worthy of the four year wait. If you are a fan of female-fronted doom metal, such as the aforementioned Windhand and bands like Blood Ceremony then there should be plenty here for you to enjoy.