Entering their third decade of existence now, and having released their debut 26 years ago, Funeral’s sixth album is their first with Season of Mist. and while they have had a line-up change since recording the album, I’m going to ignore that as it’s not relevant to what I’m hearing or shall say.
While these are only 10 songs on the Deluxe version, it’s still nearly 90 minutes long, so be prepared to take a while to listen to it from end to end. Oh, and it’s all in Norwegian, but apparently the liner notes shall explain what the songs are about for those that don’t understand the language.
The album opens with “Ånd” where Andrè Aaslie’s orchestrations, which sound very grandiose and score-like are joined by Erlend Nybø and Magnus Tveiten’s slow but extremely heavy guitars, Sindre Nedland’s vocals are accompanied by Lars Are Nedland’s on this song and the contrasts are quite pleasant.
While still very doomy, “Materie” has a levity to the vocals as the harmonies are layered to give it a serene feeling, but when the growls come to the fore and the leads take flight, the music feels epic as Anders Eek’s moderate drumming keeps the pace funereal.
Combined “Erindring I – Hovmod” and “Erindring II – Fall” are just shy of 20 minutes but somehow just flow so well that it’s easy to lose yourself in the music are the brass punctuates each movement and the dual vocals work well to give a rough edge to the clean vocal, while ending the first song with a lovely choral effect, before building up the second song with horns and trumpets over brash drums and chugging guitars, then fading into a mournful piano and near a cappella, but it’s the long low growls over the same music that sound really mournful.
The vocals have a very operatic feel to them on “Oppvåkning”, being either full and beautifully sung, or chorales filled with harmonies over steady strumming.
Rune Gandrud’s bass fills out “Dvelen” as the long guitar notes ring out over drums rolls and cymbal crashes while the vocals are more a lamenting chant that morphs into a death growl as the song unfolds.
I guess the remaining tracks would comprise as a bonus album of songs record and released here to complement the album as a whole.
I love the deep bassy vocal that opens “Her Til Evig Tid (ånd: epilog)” before lightening up once the rest of the band come in but then continuing is what could be a duet, with three completely different vocal styles.
Filled with orchestral movements “Vekst (erindring : prolog)” builds then wanes as it winds its way through its considerable length.
“Shades From These Wounds” is a haunting instrumental and the shortest song on the album.
Being a huge Candlemass fan, I instantly recognised “Samarithan” and must admit that I did enjoy their version of the song, even though I did keep expecting to hear bits of the original on each listen and going ‘oh yeah’ when they added their own slant to things.
While a really long album, the musical style lends itself to lengthy songs, so it never feels laboured or drawn out as it slows plods along.
(8/10 Marco Gaminara)
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