Candlemass forever tainted my view of doom metal with a style that was as much bred from powerful (rather than power) 1980s metal as it was classic 70s doom. An ultra-melodic, hyper-doom style all of its own that I now realise spoilt me rotten as I soaked up every ecstatic note of Nightfall, Ancient Dreams and anything else on which Messiah Marcolin had breathed his no-doubt beer-soaked breath. For that I make no apology and would still be rifling through the ‘C’ section of my music collection if my house were burning to the ground at this very moment. Only much later did I refine my tastes (marginally) with the vague realisation that life, and the Messiah, might one day pass me by.
But even now, as I search for that 15 year-old high once more, I dared to hope that the flood of doom and doom death releases coming out of Russia right now might actually produce a Candlemass methadone like that the seemingly infinite number of Russian doom obsessives working away on an infinite number of down-tuned amplified musical instruments. Mare Infinitum are no such clone, and all for the most positive reasons I am glad to reveal. However, they are impressively imbued with a spirit that will lighten the day of any Candlemass junkie.
Mare Infinitum, here with their second album after 2011’s Sea of Infinity, are a doom-death band with an ear for grand, sweeping musical statements and sludgy funeral trawls. The clumsily named Alien Monolith God fortunately gets better from the moment you stop reading the title and as soon as the first track kicks off. The operatic swell of The Nightmare Corpse City of R’lyeh feels like a tribute to that old Candlemass melody before giving way to a much darker, resonating, doom death crawl halfway through that plumbs depths of pure, dark, tolling doom that I’m pretty sure Leif et al never quite managed to reach. And if you think that sounds mouth-watering then wait for the wailing female vocals which arrive at the track’s peak to tip things over the edge. The final flurry brings all the elements together into a final trudging death doom cacophony and in 10 minutes provides a good enough reason to check this out in itself.
The second track stands out for its rigid, discordant refusal to give up the deep death elements of Mare Infinitum’s sound. It’s perhaps the only track that I felt was a bit laboured and could perhaps even have done with a bit of a trim. The third track initially threatens to do the same but it slowly and almost reluctantly begins to wind itself into one of those very infectious funeral doom-style musical build-ups that eventually turns into something hypnotising and exhilarating. The final two tracks are just as interesting, never really performing the same trick twice, and making this a nice adventure that makes Alien Monolith God an album worth a peek. Something I wasn’t quite expecting after the first flick through but like many decent albums it revealed itself in glimpses and only more fully after repeated listens.
An enjoyable experience all round from an album that is thoughtful with a valiant stab multi-faceted while never stepping too far out of classic doom and doom death territory. Lots of styles, including, yes, a nice thread of Candlemass, nicely packed into the five extended tracks. It sometimes borders on the unexcitingly funereal and perhaps could have done with a snip from the editors scissoring machine in one or two places. But at other times it soars upwards and outwards in totally unexpected ways. Worth a listen for the committed and the doom-death curious alike.
(7.5/10 Reverend Darkstanley)
http://mareinfinitum.bandcamp.com
http://solitude-prod.com/blog/lang/eng/2015/04/sp-101-15-mare-infinitum-alien-monolith-god
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