Finnish doom, eh? Well doom death bordering on the funereal anyway. ‘Father Of Sickness’ crawls out of the blocks like a slightly more animated Unholy with a kind of sense of that first Paradise Lost album in the eerie and forlorn melody that echoes over the top of the ponderous, heavy riff. It takes me back in a way, to when funeral doom was so underground it was a genre that was whispered in the empty crawlspace between magazines and the fledgling internet.
Solothus I admit were a new name to me despite being on their third album here, but there is a real sense of awe in their music; they can ‘speed’ up to a mid-paced amble, change up the backing vocals and their talent for a dark and eldritch melody is deft and fluid. They also don’t over do it, turning in a good 42 minutes rather than some 60 minute marathon but, in the best way this is in no way any less epic.
‘The Gallows Promise’ has echoes of Thergothon in the twilight twinkling melody, maybe just a hint of Skepticism but not much. Ahab definitely though less tidal, if you get my drift. What it does is open a gorgeous feeling in my chest as that subtle tune worms its way inside. This is genuinely an exemplary, moving and deeply, deeply atmospheric song. Beautiful in its way.
This is definitely an album to sink into, to sit back and let it fill all the spaces around you. Strangely I don’t find this downbeat at all, there is mystery here and exploration and hints of strange things drowned in deep time. It is an album of intrigue, of swords and of sorcery maybe (though I have no lyrics to hand).
Oh, I could go on but I will take my cue from the band themselves. This is an elegant, mysterious and twilight haunted album; it is deeply melodic, eerie and offers enough hints to lure you in and keep you there fascinated. The production is rich but dark, the kind that make the riffs close in rather than open out into epic spaces. Everything about this album works for me.
Superb gentlemen. Superb.
(8.5/10 Gizmo)
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