This is the second album by the Italian/Greek quartet, with three quarters based in Rome and the last in Wales. Having reviewed the last Aphonic Threnody towards the end of last year, I figured I’d give this a go as Riccardo Veronese (bass) is in both bands, while Kostas Panagiotou (vocals, keyboards) of Pantheist was also a previous member and Ivano Olivieri (drums) and Ivan Zara (guitars) both have this as a side project too.

Coming in at just over an hour the 6-song album begins with the intro “Alpha & Omega” where the sounds of the sea and birds give way to a full guitar sound with lumbering drums before heading into “The Minoan Tragedy” where the guitars and drums are even slower before a laconic lead takes is into a softly spoken verse that makes way for long, low growls as the keyboards fill out the sound. That’s over the first 4 minutes, then for the next 12 the pace remains largely unchanged as the vocals flip between clean and growled as the tale is told, but there are moments where the drums kick into life approaching death metal speeds before heading back down to the funeral doom plod.

The very echoey keyboards on the “To The Forgotten Tribes” intro are joined by a slow guitar riff that never really builds any further, but rather works as the perfect accompaniment to the even slower growled vocals to give the oppressive ambience required.

“The Bull And The Serpent” is the complete other end of the spectrum with loud screaming guitars over blasting drums and death growls, probably explaining why the song is half the length of all the others, as it’s played that much faster. But that said, it does still have its melancholic movements where morose clean vocals have a funereal feel about them.

The penultimate track is only 4 seconds shorter than the longest track on the album and “Mad Prophetess” is filled with a melodic lead running parallel to the rhythm guitar as the vocals roar or croon along. The tempo has a couple changes but even the fastest breaks pale in comparison to the previous track but are still that much faster than the general pace of the rest of the song.

They wrap things up with the outro “Pelasgian Tales” where the bass is far more audible in the mix, playing the root notes as the lead wails over the sounds of screaming women and children, while the lyrics alternate between being growled and sung and spoken.

I enjoyed the album for its ambience, and it worked really well just having it playing, but I can’t say it’s something that required active listening as the subtle changes do not require anything of the sort.

(7/10  Marco Gaminara)

https://www.facebook.com/TowardsAtl

https://pantheistuk.bandcamp.com/album/when-the-ashes-devoured-the-sun