“We have an incredibly hungry, ambitious doom/death quintet in San Diego’s Tideless. Many of its members served time in other bands, so experience really isn’t the issue here. What is the issue lies in the fact that Tideless, on their second full-length, is punching well above their weight class. And nothing screams “punching up” quite like a 75-minute double album of Deafheavenly delights.” Low tide, high ambition.
“Mirror Reaper expanded the scope of what doom could be, delivering a towering epic dedicated to the band’s original drummer Adrien Guerra, who passed away in 2016. Any reasonable human would look at this accomplishment and probably decide it was time to scale things back. Dylan Desmond and Jesse Shriebman are not reasonable. One wonders if they’re even human as they prepare to test the limits of attention span again with Future’s Shadow, a proposed tryptic of one-song records of which the 83-minute The Clandestine Gate is first.” Gate Reaper.
It’s art appreciation time at AMG as GardensTale unveils his Top Ten(ish) Album Art of 2022.
“Two years ago, German then-duo Eremit trudged onto the scene with a 68-minute, three-song mammoth, Carrier of Weight, an album that contained a foreboding atmosphere, a production that could crush an elephant like it was an empty aluminum can, and about six or seven total riffs between all three gargantuan-length songs. It was a bit much for me, but even then, I could sense the potential for these sludge-bearers to smother the masses and climb to the top of the heap where witches with bells sit upon oaken (Lewandowski-painted) thrones, surveying the wastelands forevermore. If there was something that the shitstorm that was 2020 and parts of 2021 taught me, it’s that patience is most certainly a welcome virtue, and time can soften an old fuddy-duddy like yours truly. As such, the now-trio-again have seen fit to unleash their newest beast, Bearer of Many Names, with a sleeker, heavier disposition.” Names with weight.
“After recent (and in one case accidental) forays into genres somewhat removed from my traditional hunting grounds – funeral fucking drone and death metal – I am pleased this week to be back in more familiar waters with some sludgy doom. Vermont two-piece, Body Void return with their third full-length, Bury Me Beneath this Rotting Earth.” Cull and void.
“We spend every single day of the year on this blog talking about music. The highs, the lows, the marshes of the meh. Occasionally, we give a nod to an especially beautiful cover (or an especially heinous one) to buff our word count for the article, but it’s barely a condiment on the edge of the buffet plate, stacked with pretentious slop, that we throw casually in front of the voracious readership. But this one time a year, I don’t have to talk about the music at all.” Gardens variety galleries.
“Like raw black metal, funeral doom operates at the extremely thin edge of an extremely niche wedge. Long, patient, languid tracks put many to sleep with their glacial pace. But glaciers carry enormous momentum as a result of their sheer mass. For those who appreciate it, funeral doom provides an unparalleled — and often profound — journey through grief and sorrow. Greece’s Shattered Hope offer their third attempt at this tricky genre with Vespers.” Sad scooters.
“What do you get when two stalwarts of the British stoner and doom scenes come together to make a record they felt was too experimental for their existing projects? Self Hypnosis is the brainchild of Camel of Doom main man Kris Clayton, partnering with Esoteric’s vocalist, guitarist and occasional keyboardist Greg Chandler. The trio is rounded out by drummer Tom Valleley. Combining elements of Clayton and Chandler’s other projects, Self Hypnosis are now ready to drop their avant-garde debut, Contagion of Despair.” Doom trancers.
“Dylan Desmond and Jesse Shreibman’s decision to make official their partnership with Erik Moggridge, the man in Aerial Ruin’s one-man dark folk band, made sense. Moggridge’s guest vocals on Mirror Reaper conveyed grief and loss on a frequency that Bell Witch couldn’t have reached alone. Stygian Bough Volume I pries those mournful dimensions wide in a symbiotic give-and-take quite unlike anything either act has produced before.” Witch in flight.
“When I hear the term “funeral doom,” several words immediately come to mind: slow, reeeally fucking slow, crushing, monolithic, etc. I am moved to many turns ov phrase in the presence of funeral doom, yet one word which rarely plods to the forefront of my funereal lexicon is also one which I cannot avoid when discussing the genre: what is “funeral,” Alex?” I’ll take Potpourr-zees for $200.
