I thought I had best grab this one and drench myself in an hour’s worth of abject misery. I can wallow in the songs and get used to them before seeing the band supporting Esoteric that way, a show that is fast approaching in London celebrating 30 years the headliners have been warping minds. Consecration hailing from Norwich, have only been going for a fraction of that time, arriving in 2010 with an EP crudely entitled ‘Gut The Priest.’ I guess they have honed this early blunt-knifed attack into the doom death act we have before us. There have been two albums prior to Cinis (cold heavy ashes apparently) the last of which Fragilium came via Aesthetic Death in 2019, its 5 lengthy tracks and nearly an hour’s worth of music almost ruined the previous writer who tackled it.
The length is pretty much the same although the songs have been boosted to 9. Fear not though lovers of the slow, long and crushing, a couple of these are short instrumental breaks including one called ahem ‘A Dying Wish’ but on the whole there’s plenty of long ones to submerge thyself in. Classic bass laden lines chug in on the first of these ‘A Dweller In The Tumulus’ and the slow pound takes up over incredibly craggy vocals. I discovered according to other sources that the 5 players here don’t seem to have been affiliated to any other bands past or present which is a bit of a rarity these days. It is especially so when one takes vocalist Daniel Bollans into account as he tars his parts with what can only be described as an extreme stance amidst the now weeping guitar lines. There are no swooning clean parts ushered in on the entire length of the album and indeed he gurgles and vomits his parts out as though he shares time in a goregrind band. Traditionalists may well find this a bit tough to take as it certainly adds rough edges to the mournful harmonies of the instrumentalists but the rest of us can acknowledge the fact that if this lot survive forthcoming decades, they are unlikely to do an Opeth on us. Naturally with the doom comes the death and you can bang your heads along to the flurries that emerge and add the occasional thrust to proceedings. It’s easy to lose your way here suddenly getting snapped back to life by harsher elements, speaking of which we get a coarse cackle and even a death grunt on ‘Ground to Ashes (A Cremulation)’ which along with the drumming can only be described as a stomper of a number.
Occasional acoustic parts bring light but it’s never long before we are submerged into darkness once more. Obviously rooted in the early works of the UK’s unholy trinity of atmospheric doom, pace is handled well and fluidly changes within the structures of songs like the epic 11 minute ‘Embrace Of Perpetual Mourning’ a funeral invite by any other name. There’s plenty that those looking for some nostalgia will find in this sprawling mausoleum of a song. Although having said that the vocals are so harsh one can easily imagine they are being stalked around it by Phantasm’s Tall Man. Those who have survived this scary place are later ushered into the downright terrifying ‘Charnel House.’ This much shorter number fully embraces the death (as expected) allows the drum to thump away and even has chief mortician Dave Ingram adding to the already grizzly vocal lines.
Time and patience is needed here, there’s no quick fix but those who like their death doom will find Cinis a miserably enjoyable for a solitary listening experience, or to clear a party that has outstayed its welcome. Catch them deconsecrating the Boston Arms London on 18th June. I’ll be the one crying into my cider.
(7.5/10 Pete Woods)
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