Merchants Of Air
  • Home
  • Reviews
    • Albums
    • Concerts
  • Premieres
  • Interviews
  • Giveaways
  • Playlists
  • Shop
    • Merchants Of Air releases
  • About us
    • About Us
    • Writers Wanted
    • Logos and banner
    • Advertise
    • Mailinglist

SubRosa - For This We Fought The Battle Of Ages

25/8/2016

Comments

 
doom
Profound Lore
bandcamp
facebook
Picture
Picture
Support Merchants Of Air, check out our shop
Just when I started believing that doom metal didn't have a lot of variation-possibilities left, this bizarre masterpiece found my inbox. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love doom metal. I just thought that the genre-boundaries had been solidified by now and that there was little else bands could do to come out as something extraordinary. Apparently, I forgot about SubRosa, or better, I never heard of SubRosa before this album reached me. Why? Well, I guess mainly because I was out of metal until I formed Merchants Of Air in 2014, and SubRosa's latest album dates back to 2013. So for me, this is a highly surprising first encounter, one which undoubtedly be followed by a deep dive into their entire oeuvre. 

SubRosa hails from Salt Lake City and was formed in 2005 by guitarist and vocalist Rebecca Vernon. Over the years, the band expanded and today there are two violinists among the more traditional instrumentation of guitars, drums and bass. Those violins add something special to the whole thing, which might indeed recommend people of My Dying Bride but goes way further than that. Here, the violins add a sense of eerie chamber music to the whole thing. With that, you might expect some smooth and relaxing tunes but don't forget that SubRosa can also blast out in crushing sludge doom, complete with brutal vocals and brain drilling riffage. And they can do it at the same time, completely confusing the listener.

'Wound Of The Warden' feels like Zola Jesus meets Evoken or Diamanda Galas meets Agalloch, obviously accompagnied with those playful but dark violins. On other occasions this music feels like the metal version of Dresden Dolls or like PJ Harvey crawled out of an intensely dark and haunting experience. The level of dissonance is quite high, often gaining the capacity of harsh black metal or even noise, but there's always this strange sense of melody to grasp on while you're being dragged into the occult whirlpool of sounds. There is always this brilliant occult feel of musical witchcraft.

My favorite track is 'Black Majesty', which begins as a gently sung medieval folk song and evolves into a torpid but immersive piece of doom. The overall feel of this is song is so intensely gloomy that it immediately chills the room. That is pretty damn impressive by the way, since we're currently facing a heatwave. It's bleeding hot in this room but at this very moment, cold chills are running down my spine. Those continue throughout the rest of the album, an album that I absolutely recommend to any doom fan, whether it's folk doom, sludge doom, funeral doom, gothic doom or blackened doom. This is a masterpiece...


​Serge


Comments
    subscribe to our newsletter

    Genres

    All
    Acoustic
    Alternative
    Ambient
    Avant Garde
    Avant-garde
    Black Metal
    Blues
    Children
    Classical
    Country
    Crust
    Dark Ambient
    Dark Jazz
    Darkwave
    Death Metal
    Doom
    Dream Pop
    Drone
    Drum & Bass
    Dub
    Dubstep
    EBM
    Electro
    Electronic
    Ethereal
    Experimental
    Folk
    Folk Metal
    Funk
    Gothic
    Grindcore
    Grunge
    Hardcore
    Hard Rock
    Heavy Metal
    Hip Hop
    Hip-hop
    Idm
    Indie
    Industrial
    Instrumental
    Jazz
    Krautrock
    Martial
    Math Rock
    Metal
    Metalcore
    Neo Classical
    Neo-classical
    Neo Folk
    Neo-folk
    Noise
    Noise Rock
    Noise-rock
    Nu Metal
    Nu-metal
    Opera
    Pop
    Post Metal
    Post Punk
    Post Rock
    Progressive
    Psychedelic
    Psytrance
    Punk
    Reggae
    Rock
    Score
    Shoegaze
    Singer/songwriter
    Sludge
    Soul
    Southern Rock
    Speed Metal
    Stoner
    Symphonic Metal
    Synthpop
    Techno
    Thrash
    Triphop
    Trip-hop
    World

    Archives

    July 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015

Find us on

facebook
google+
twitter
tumblr
​
minds

About Us

Contact
FAQ
Logos and banners
© COPYRIGHT 2015. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.