Oathbreaker’s
second album Eros|Anteros is the follow-up to 2011’s Maelstrom, an album that
firmly placed the Belgian hardcore band, and members of the Ra collective,
firmly on the map. Releasing the record through Deathwish Inc. certainly helped
too. While Maelstrom was a vicious and unrelenting piece of work, riddled with
scything riffs and scorched earth vocals from Caro Tanghe, it displayed a more
reserved side at times, heard on its title track. This dynamic is explored much
more so on Eros|Anteros, though make no mistake, the fierce likes of ‘Condor
Tongue’ and ‘Nomads’ still make up the bulk of the record. However, the
expansive nine minute ‘The Abyss Looks Into Me’ and the meandering ‘Agartha’
show a band taking melodic cues from their peers and contorting their
established sound into something new. Eros|Anteros is a frustrated record in
some regards as the Belgians seem determined to try something new and while
solid, it feels much more indicative of things to come rather than a statement
of what they are now.
Ataraxie – L'Être
et la Nausée
French
death/doom maestros Ataraxie have finally released the follow-up to 2008’s Anhédonie
but special mention must be made of the band’s appearance on Irish soil; a
stunningly evocative set at Dublin Doom Days 2012, which proved to be one of
the fest’s highlights once the dust had settled. Now they have released their
newest full-length L'Être et la Nausée, a devastating trip into the murky abyss
of death and funeral doom. At nearly 80 minutes, Ataraxie have taken an
expected route for epic death/doom but it’s by no means predictable as the
band’s crushing dirges of lead guitars that recall Mourning Beloveth and
scathing throaty vocals from Jonathan Théry that are equally harrowing as they
are invigorating, is all overwhelming. This densely layered piece of work is perfected
by bursts of death metal blasts peppered throughout that perfectly complement
the snail’s pace doom that makes up the majority of the album. ‘Face The Loss
of Your Sanity’ is one such empowering dirge that’s indicative of the entire
record; one of 2013’s very best in doom.
MSW – Cloud:
Musica Pro Lapsu
In a totally
different realm we have MSW from Salem, Oregon’s Hell. With this project and
its new cassette release Cloud: Musica Pro Lapsu, he has left behind the sludgy misanthropic doom
of Hell but still very much maintained a funereal tone. Cloud is largely a
piano piece, spliced with faint vocal textures, layers of strings and vague
distant guitars. “This album is not metal but heavy” says the self-applied
description and the dense ambience certainly attests to this. With two ten minute
elegies of reflective atmospherics, Cloud is a listen to completely lose one’s
self in in a dark room, left only with your thoughts. Harrowing and equally
beautiful.
No comments:
Post a Comment