The first few moments of opening song ‘Boreas’ make you think that with Wijlen Wij you’re in for some serious Skepticism worship as the organ swells with the riff and fills the room. But then the clean vocals come in and you realise that this a different beast after all. No less imposing with having keyboards and a serious line in sumptuous, melancholic melody, but different.
Classy. But as, I guess, Wijlen Wij are as close to a supergroup as the reclusive funeral doom genre is likely to get that shouldn’t come as a surprise. Comprising of Kostas Panagiotou (Pantheist), Kris Villez (In Somnis), Lawrence van Haecke (Solicide) and new band member Geert van Mook they take us on a slow, dark, keyboard led journey into the quiet loneliness of the soul with a sure, unflinching step and just a wake of quality that requires you to stop and to stare even at the sedate pace of funeral doom.
After the opener, ‘Die Verwandlung’ is a more choppy, riff chug affair but overlaid with a rich, bittersweet melody that belies the density of the guitar and setting the tone fire the remainder of the album. Alternatively blossoming with sumptuous melody and tinge or falling back into the hard, dry rock of the riff and growled vocals, the album is a classic and worthy example of why funeral doom stands apart from those who try to incorporate it’s curious balance of bleakness, beauty and harsh loneliness into forms it doesn’t fit. Listen to the full, swelling sound at the beginning of ‘A Solemn Ode To Ruin’ and you will find between the intoned voice, the almost Floyd-like guitar melody and the organ-and-guitar riff a real haunting humanity absent in too many bands. There is a progressive touch as you might expect from the involvement of Kostas Panagiotou but it never overwhelms the beauty of the, pure lines of these pieces and this song in particular has such a level of grace to it that it is simply mesmerising. Classical feel, Lynchian overtones of travelling into darkness, the doom of knowing it is what you were always meant to do and the dreamlike quality of drowning under these pulsing waves of deep, morphine warm melody. Frankly this seventeen minute song alone is a masterclass of funeral doom and one that will haunt your long nights for years to come.
Closing with the awe inducing coda of ‘From The Periphery’ with some utterly sublime mixing of haunting clean vocals and classic death all in a gothic tinged funeral package, this is the finest funeral doom I have heard since Ahab’s ‘The Giant’ and considering how that haunts my playlist this is no little thing. Coronachs Of The Ω is, simply put, beautiful. Melodic funeral doom at the pinnacle.
Buy. Please.
(9/10 Gizmo)
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