One of the most striking things about Death & Dying… is its powerful sense of ennui. Hours of Worship have greatly toned down the synth-pop sparkle, relegating the electronic to subtle waves and washes of gentle tunefulness. It covers all of the music like a blanket, shrouding with a lethargic energy. And even when it meanders into melodies, stumbles sedately. This in combination with frequently softly-delivered, echoed, and faded vocals, and consistently crawling pace, gives the album a sort of sleepwalking quality. Song titles reinforce the feeling of morbid dismalness (“Loyal to Misery,” “Smoke Yourself to Sleep”), as does the choice to cover Mütiilation’s “The Eggs of Melancholy.” This latter point is not much different to the band’s previous work, but here the depressive mood suggested by such titles is realized in particular vividness.
As miserable as it is, Death & Dying is pretty, for the most part. Reverberating layers of guitar, synth, and voice craft dreamy hazes (“Loyal to Misery,” “Blood on Stone,” “Torn Like Lace”). Meanwhile, persistent melancholy melodies lend delicate threads to follow through the gloom, in aforementioned washes of notes, the occasional swaying riff (“Smoke Yourself to Sleep,” “Torn Like Lace) or weeping, horn-like synth (“Blood on Stone”). This is an appropriately slow-growing, languorous kind of pretty, rather than a knock-your-socks-off kind of stunning. It feels natural, and well-balanced by the darkly-annunciated half spoken, half-sung intonations of vocalist Trembling Master. But Hours of Worship also manage to insert just a little edge into all this softness. “Forgotten Like the Cross” is the most ‘energetic’ and the most ‘metal’, with most of the record’s only harsh(-approaching) vocals, near-sinister string refrains, and a bleating, uptempo finale. Touches of the dramatic (“Torn Like Lace”) and the menacing (the noisily clustered instrumentation of “The Eggs of Melancholy,” for instance) are welcome. Though, I would argue that the duo are stronger when they keep things dark and dreary, and stick to the slow, making “Forgotten…” possibly the weakest cut, at least when it turns more aggressive.
Everything in Death & Dying’s favor also works against it to a certain degree. One definitely has to be in a particular mood—or a particular way inclined—to enjoy its gloomy harmonies and phlegmatic tone. Luckily, I am, but it is likely to polarise listeners who do or don’t possess the requisite patience and calm. It cannot fairly be faulted, however, for Hours of Worship’s expressing themselves so well. A little variation probably wouldn’t hurt, but there is a Part II to come, and perhaps there’ll be a balance then. Another potential listener-splitter is how folded into the mix much of the vocals are. It enhances the somnolent, hazy quality of the music, and at the most beautiful moments, this is quite lovely. There are times, nonetheless when the music might have had more power were they lifted a little higher over the vaporous layers of synth. Despite these factors, Death & Dying… is unlikely to cause much grief (other than the inevitable existential malaise). It sits a hair over half an hour, and is so dreamlike that it’ll slip by before you’ve noticed you’ve lost the time to it.
Just like all of Hours of Worship’s output, Death & Dying… has a very particular niche that will turn some away. But in sticking to it, they have continued to create music that is soaked in the beautiful bleakness it is designed to express. It is dark and sullen, but alluringly so. Maybe it’s a latent infatuation with the classically mopey Byronic figure, but Death & Dying’s cheerlessness has its claws in me.
Rating: Very Good
DR: Eh | Format Reviewed: A Stream
Label: Worship the Dead
Website: hoursofworship.bandcamp.com
Releases Worldwide: May 26th, 2023
