Whether they like it or not, Sulphur Aeon left its mark on the death metal world. While it’s easy to focus on their lyrical themes and reverence for the Great Old Ones as a lyrical monument, their straightforward approach tinged with blackened precision and colossal atmosphere extends to more than the Cthulhu worshipers out there. Take their fellow Germans, the longstanding death metal act Drowned. While the lyrics of Procul His revolve around things like the occult, darkness, and abstract themes, you’ll find that the sound feels straight outta the Antisphere. Death metal’s barbarity is channeled through the discreet and sinister palette of darkness, and the atmosphere is front and center.
Contrary to the epic overwhelm of Devenial Verdict or the smoke-filled opaqueness of Desolate Shrine, Berlin trio Drowned dwells in minimalist compositions. While vocalist and bassist Greg Circum offers a weighty roar that drips in blackened menace and drummer Tobias Engl’s technique is rock-solid, the crawling subdued riffs and patient plucking of former Necros Christos guitarist Tlmnn are the real star of the show. The trio’s second full-length is undeniably evocative, a mysterious and ominous sermon tinged with malice, although the brutality remains absent and replay value is sparse. It’s worth a spin for the fans of the more contemplative side of death metal but offers little else.
What Drowned does well is concoct its tracks with patience, and even the more vicious cuts are steeped in mystery. Openers “Star Tower” and “Phantom Stairs” are squirming dirges of semi-dissonant leads and simple drumming, while brutal death growls dominate the palette. “Corpse God” features a pendulum swing of a 6/8 timing, which injects a distinct madness to the proceedings, while the synth adds a dark twist to “Seed of Bones.” More energetic cuts abound in the second act, as “Malachite Mirror,” “Man in Devil in Man,” and “Blue Moth Vault” offer influences of blackened death and blastbeats, respectively, with blazing tremolo lighting the way through dark and gloomy soundscapes. Minimalism nevertheless remains a stalwart in these heavier interpretations even so, as bass remains nearly inaudible underneath the guitar-centric approach and Circum’s vicious vocals. Drowned toes the line between blackened death and old-school philosophies, most effectively culminating in the riffiest cut “Chryseos Vas,” which effectively exchanges deathy chugs for blackened intensity and back again, with a charisma found in doom’s mammoth halls while its more patient crescendos are achieved in climactic crusty passages.
The primary issue with Procul His is that Drowned fails to claim any sense of memorability throughout the album’s protracted 44-minute length. It’s a gloomy affair, mastery of dark melody on full display in ways that recall Sulphur Aeon’s latest, but lacking the colossal quality and fully immersive experience that makes the Lovecraftian songstresses so effective. Thus, no riff sticks in the brain, with potentially unhinged brutality a la Vitriol or Hate Eternal tidily confined to the safety of its atmospheric compositions. Opener “Star Tower,” while creepy-crawly, is remarkably limp in its painfully sparse melodies and simple lack of things going on. Drowned’s energetic back-half blurs together due to jarring passage shifts between riffs and plucking and punky passages with little apt transition between it all, with “Man in Devil in Man,” “Blue Moth Vault,” and “Seed of Bones” being just a kinda pleasant blur from start to end. That’s the problem with Procul His: there’s very little explicitly bad about it, but there’s nothing that stands out either.
The first half, despite the limp opener, had me hoping to hang my antlers once again upon the Three Tree with Drowned’s effectiveness in conjuring a dread-inducing and nightmarishly vivid atmosphere through minimalist tools. While I initially thought “Man in Devil in Man” was a welcome jolt of energy, it instead signaled a wave of uninspired death metal from an act that could do so much better. While it ends on a good note that balances its effective assets, it does not conclude an effective album. The balance between menacing atmosphere and devastating death metal is an admirable attempt, but too often it becomes a balance of too little and too much across its two halves. Drowned features an enticing aura of madness and mystery, but in a way that “We have Sulphur Aeon at home” does.
Rating: 2.0/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Sepulchral Voice Records
Websites: drowned.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/drowned.death.metal
Releases Worldwide: January 26th, 2024
