funeral doom
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Only a few weeks ago, I reviewed (read) the previous full-length by Abysmal Growls Of Despair. I really liked the album and so I recommended it to any fan of funeral doom metal. Now, if you're one of those fans and you're checking out this French one-man project, be sure to purchase a copy of 'Between My Dead'. It's even better than the previous one, a massive, monolithic piece of extreme slow and depressive metal.
Over the years Abysmal Growls Of Despair has been perfecting his dark art and that's quite audible. With this effort he comes very close to some drone doom acts, even including Sunn O))). Yet, the typical, guttural growls remain a constant in this music. This results in a number of huge tracks, slow, downtuned and intensely heavy. Needless to say that the tracks here are very long.
Except maybe for the intro 'Misanthropy', which is actually a splendid dark ambient track with soundscapes and eerie noises. As far as I'm concerned, this could become a very interesting side project. What follows next depicts the evolution of this solo-act. Songs like 'The End Of Previous Life' and 'New Beginning' show a musician that wants to grow and become a solid act in this genre. He certainly earned that moniker, that's for sure.
'The Feast' and 'Wake Up' deliver more funeral doom goodness, directly from the putrid underground of the French metal scene. He even seems to need lesser keyboards than on his previous work. I do like keyboards sometimes but the current approach seems to be even more convincing, darker and more fearsome. Perhaps I still prefer drones above synths but both are very welcome in this genre and both are simple brilliant on this album.
So my recommendation? Well, as I mentioned earlier in this review: get your hands on this thing if you're a funeral doom metal fan. This little gem with find the way to my stereo many times from now on and the digital version will appear in playlist where Evoken, Funeral and Shape Of Despair are residents.
Serge
Over the years Abysmal Growls Of Despair has been perfecting his dark art and that's quite audible. With this effort he comes very close to some drone doom acts, even including Sunn O))). Yet, the typical, guttural growls remain a constant in this music. This results in a number of huge tracks, slow, downtuned and intensely heavy. Needless to say that the tracks here are very long.
Except maybe for the intro 'Misanthropy', which is actually a splendid dark ambient track with soundscapes and eerie noises. As far as I'm concerned, this could become a very interesting side project. What follows next depicts the evolution of this solo-act. Songs like 'The End Of Previous Life' and 'New Beginning' show a musician that wants to grow and become a solid act in this genre. He certainly earned that moniker, that's for sure.
'The Feast' and 'Wake Up' deliver more funeral doom goodness, directly from the putrid underground of the French metal scene. He even seems to need lesser keyboards than on his previous work. I do like keyboards sometimes but the current approach seems to be even more convincing, darker and more fearsome. Perhaps I still prefer drones above synths but both are very welcome in this genre and both are simple brilliant on this album.
So my recommendation? Well, as I mentioned earlier in this review: get your hands on this thing if you're a funeral doom metal fan. This little gem with find the way to my stereo many times from now on and the digital version will appear in playlist where Evoken, Funeral and Shape Of Despair are residents.
Serge
