Lachrimatory hail from Brazil and play some pretty serious atmospheric doom metal with heavy death metal undertones to it. Having formed in 1999 and released two demos, one in 2001 and the other in 2006, they released their first and only album so far: “Transient” in 2011 as a self-produced and self released effort which was highly praised, sold out quickly and became highly sought after. Teaming up with Solitude Productions, the band have re-issued this album with a more professional look and high quality recreations of the original artwork.
“Seclusion” opens the album. The haunting sound of a cello over a subtle drum beat sets the mood and the sombre sounding clean guitar melody over it joins in. Eventually the distortion kicks in and the growled vocals join in. The haunting clean sound, strings and simple drum beat underneath the droning distortion keep the haunting atmosphere and it works really well with the vocal style used. Round the six minute mark is one of the highlights of this track. An instrumental section which gets more intense as the cello starts to carry the lead melody, whilst the drums and guitar up the intensity without overpowering the strings. Overall, it’s an ambitious opening track, clocking in at just over 12 minutes, but it’s a great introduction to the band.
“Lachrimatory” is up next. Opening with distorted guitars and crashing cymbals, the deep bass joins in as the song proceeds at a rather crushing pace. The Cello comes back in again with the haunting melody and the harshly growled vocals return at the same time, building further on the mood set by the previous track. Synths feature in this track, driving up the atmospheric nature of the track even more. The song changes feel roughly halfway through and it disrupts the flow slightly, but it’s still so easy to get caught up in, especially when you just focus on the string and synth work and just let it carry you away. It’s clear that two songs in, Lachrimatory have an idea of how they want to sound – big and ambitious, even with some slight disjointed changes in the feel of the songs.
“Twilight” begins with a bass line which then gets mirrored by the guitar when the rest of the band joins in. This one has a bit more edge to it in terms of the sound, as in its less gloomy and more crushing. The pounding drums and hard guitars coupled with the more sinister sounding cello and synth in the verse really works well, but the haunting feel comes back in the instrumental sections. This track also features clean singing which comes in round the two minute mark which was an unexpected change and it works well but as that gets going, it switches back to the more pushing feel with the more metal sounding drums under the slow, crushing guitar work. About halfway through there is a clean break with piano added which builds more on the suspense and gloomy nature which leads to a spoken section which keeps this feel up before the high intensity and slightly faster ending section starts which is a fantastic way to end the song.
“Clarity” has that eerie feel as it starts off and brings it back to a more traditional slow, crushing doomy pace. It gets heavier round the 2:30 mark as the drums kick to life, the vocals and the strings get more intense and the riffs get more evil sounding, but the switching feel of the section just feels disjointed at times. It’s easy to get lost whilst listening to this one and with this in mind, the title of the song is slightly ironic. Round the 5:20 mark, there is a drum and bass heavy break which takes the song in another direction. The almost tribal feel of the drums at times is unsettling but before you can really appreciate it, the feel changes again as the strings kick back in, changing the whole feel once more.
“Deluge” kicks off with a lone guitar at first before the rest of the band kicks in. The full on death metal styled vocals on this track add a new level to the sound, making it create a bigger sense of hopelessness than the previous tracks did. near the three minute mark, it changes feel again with some haunting arpeggios and a bass driven section but as that picks up some pace, the strings come in and change everything again. The song gets back to the crushing feel once more and the string and synth really augment it at some points, but once more it switches up again, going clean for a short while, near the 5:40 mark in the song. It does manage to stay at the same colossal slow pace, but the whole flow just seems lost with the chopping and changing. Almost like its title, the shuffling in the feel and sound really comes down and hits you when you least expect it.
“Void” is the final track of the album, and it starts off with a dramatic suspense building intro. The heavily echo sounding strings, with piano build things up as the guitar snakes its way across it, before the rest of the band kicks in, seemingly upping the urgency with the feel superimposed by the drums, but keeping it at the slow pace which runs through the album. Like the rest of the tracks on the album, the interplay of the strings, keys/synth and the rest of the band seems to dictate the sound and feel of the song. Switching approaches but still keeping with the crushing feeling, ‘Void’ closes the album in a similar manner to how it opened – ambitious and crushingly dark.
“Transient” is a great atmospheric album which does create a dark feel when listening to it. It works so well, but at the same time, the over ambitiousness of the band comes back to bite them as the constant changing of the feel during the later stages of the album seems to hinder it more than help it. Overall, it’s a solid album and worth a listen.
(7/10 Fraggle)
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