Review by UnhinderedbyTalent for Thergothon - Stream From the Heavens (1994)

Exploring early funeral doom is fast becoming my favourite way to relax.  It really is testimony to the knowledge of the creator of this clan challenge (The Fallen: Doom Metal - The Early Days) as to how good an introduction to the clan this list of releases is.  Until recently I had only really listened to Bell Witch's Mirror Reaper as my only regular experience of funeral doom.  Understanding where the whole sub-genre that influenced that record comes from is a real treat.  As with my review of Winter's Into Darkness, I find the sheer simplicity of Thergothon's Stream From the Heavens to be remarkable in the sense of the immersive atmosphere that it creates.  Not that Winter's debut was dripping with high production values, but Thergothon's debut sounds like it was recorded in a basement somewhere in their native Finland.

What makes this album more remarkable is that there was only three members who recorded all this.  Sharing vocal, keyboard and guitar duties across all three of them (with drums handled solely by Jori Sjöroos), Stream From the Heavens is a real team effort.  This is not only dripping in atmosphere folks, it is heavy as fuck as well.  It takes the blueprint of Into Darkness and ramps up the weight dramatically.  The funeral atmospheres are serviced brilliantly by the almost black metal vocal style that sits alongside those dreary clean vocals (that also have a fair amount of spoken word alongside them).  These grim and deathly croaks add a real dimension to this record and are perhaps my favourite part of the whole experience.

I guess my only mystery here is why this album is called Stream From the Heavens when this sounds like it comes up from the opposite direction altogether.  Consistently, the record pulls you further and further into the agonisingly slow and dense atmosphere that it creates without making the whole experience feel like it goes on for too long.  At a shade under 41 minutes, this album is a perfectly palatable slab of music that never feels like it outstays its welcome.  It is bizarre how such fetid sounding vocals and crushing riffs can relax me so much but this album replaces any weight on my shoulders with a much different and more interesting weight I guess.