Well Göden basically is the collaboration of ‘Spacewinds’ (a certain Stephen Flam of legendary slow-mo deathsters Winter) with ‘Nyxta’ (Vas Kallas of indusrial/goth duo Hanzel Und Gretyl) and ex-Winter session keyboardist Tony Pinnisi. And if you’re guessing ‘so this is sloooow industrial death metal’ then frankly you’re pretty much on the money.

A gentle and melancholic intro of strings and piano ‘The Divine’ ends and we get a big, slow, keyboard enhanced sloooow riff of ‘Vale Of The Fallen’. The vocals of Nyxta are harsh, snarling and wonderfully deep in tone, not to mention comprehensible (well up until they shift to German for my sadly monolingual brain). It is such a dense sound; the all-consuming bass against the backwash of eerie keyboards, the riff pushing us down and down on a doom descent. The following track ‘Urania’ has in addition a strange groove to it, a smoother flow to the slow undulating sound and a hauntingly hook edged refrain that feels like a ritual chant from delirium scene in some dark film.

There is obviously a certain pace to this album but also a similar rhythm to the tracks. We get an instrumental in ‘Rings Of Saturn’ but ‘Death Magus’ pretty much picks up where ‘Black Vortex’ ended. So we have a slow, I guess hypnotic dance from beginning to end of the album.

The question is does it work for me? Oddly the interludes, such as the previously noted ‘Rings Of Saturn’, ‘Manifestation IX’ which has a feel that recalls The Axis Of Perdition’s love/hate album Urfe (I love it) and the wonderful violin musing of ‘The Requiem’ have the ability to grip me more than the actual tracks. It is strange because the music itself is only difficult if you have an issue with slow music (which I don’t. Yep I like Winter and, hell, I even like Corrupted…) but I found it very difficult to grasp anything beneath the surface that would keep me fixated and coming back again and again. The vocals are superb throughout and the production has a nice rasping edge to it that keeps the riffs deeply in the primal tracts of death metal and yet for all the seismic weight of the sound the gravitational pull is lacking on me.

It’s one of those albums that is like peering into a cabinet at an exquisitely crafted piece of jewellery or a strange unearthed stone artefact perfectly smoothed by time. You can see all the wonder on display but I cannot feel myself drawn in further.

It is good. It is nicely crafted and it very much has its sonic identity locked in. And It’s pleasant enough. But beyond that I’m afraid it hasn’t stuck with me over multiple listens.

Sorry but I’ll rather unexpectedly have to pass.

(6/10 Gizmo)

https://www.facebook.com/GODEN.official

https://goden-official.bandcamp.com/album/vale-of-the-fallen