From simply the cover of this new album by David Mako’s The Devil’s Trade project it is clear there are changes afoot. Gone are the stark line drawings and clear titles, instead (appropriately enough considering the label) we get a mist landscape and little information. Also half the tracks this time round are in Hungarian, and Mako is joined by long-time bandmate Gaspar Binder on drums and live keyboard player Gabor Toth. So I guess this is a new chapter in his ‘folk doom’ journey.

‘Felkelek en’ begins with a perfect taste of what the Devil’s Trade is about for me. Slowly building keyboards and Mako’s superb voice, gritting but pure, slowly rising up through the mist like some aged monk raising face to heaven in despair of being forsaken. It leads into the soft piano, gentle drums of ‘Flashing Through The Lack Of Light’. It still feels like The Devil’s Trade and beautifully so; a little Steve Von Till, a shading of Johnny Cash at his darkest, Leonard Cohen maybe. A strange doom drenched acoustic sound travelling like a ghost. And that voice as it slowly builds on pain and blossoms into the yearning that for exemplified the sound of Stereochrist. With the drums the sound becomes more dense, more tense and the emotion is so raw.

The title track, a loose translation of which is apparently There Are Landcapes Within, emphasises the slight vibrato in Mako’s voice, that feeling that the emotions are making it break but his soul keeping it string. It tiptoes quietly until the drums build the strength and then it edges into that grey world that Katatonia once walked with Viva Emptiness or Last Fair Deal Gone Down but now shirk – shadows and stories and emotions all to the fore. It’s superb and stunningly layered and paced.

‘Clear Like The Wind’ is a gentle, cool water of a song but the regret rolls in like the cold damp of the mist. ‘Liminal’ has a pulsing beat and has that sense of hesitation that the title implies, hesitation at the threshold, disorientation and confusion about the choices to be made. ‘Fordlj kedves lovam’ is a solemn procession, martial or scaffold drumming leading it on.

‘All Kings Must Fall’ harks back perhaps, banjo, acoustic guitar and voice alone pretty much, another lament. A breath before the closer ‘Uj hajnal mar nem jo’ which feels like a coda, a neat ending to this part of the journey with slow deep chords, cloying keyboards, steady drum and that voice echoing in your head.

I can’t say this is an easy album, but really The Devil’s Trade never have been. If you try to listen to it casually it will blur into the mists on the cover. If you sit and listen however this is not just a shift in the music but a thought spinning, introverted album that feeds on emotion; on regret and reflection. There is still that strange, slight folk tinge to it but the  sense of doom is all pervading. With the drums and the subtle shift in the guitars to accompany them it turns half a face towards that world Katatonia used to dwell within; an overwhelming feeling of despair and of a journey undertaken within a clouded mind.

It’s a fine, fine album no doubt and clearly a good stepping on point too for seekers of the true current of doom.

In a world of doubt and unease, this will not help.

(8.5/10 Gizmo)

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https://thedevilstrade.bandcamp.com/album/vid-kek-vannak-idebenn