Respecting those no-longer with us on their second album and follow up to ‘Where The Shadows Adorn’ it is off to eerie Indiana where the quintet Mother Of Graves Dwell. Melodic doom death is what we encounter with eight hymns of bereft solemnity. It is not a case of tears and tissues among the tombstones entirely though as this group are prone to mix the misery with plenty of burly passages reflecting the death metal side of things and there is lots of energy among the elegies within.

Classic lines summon the ghosts of early Paradise Lost as soon as play is pressed and ‘Gallows’ descends with heft and weight enough to snap a neck as soon as the body plunges into the trap. Enter the coarse and grizzled growls of vocalist Brendon Howes and a bouncy melody that reminds of mid-era Katatonia and gets fists thumping. Sure it’s not anything unexpected but as the group formulate between moods of sorrow and anger they do it well and in an engaging fashion. They also have a few tricks up their sleeve such as some strange and otherworldly keyboard pulses akin to souls escaping at the start of ‘Shatter The Visage.’ From there we are rattled into a brutal drum thudding passage which with the distempered vocals wouldn’t seem out of place on an Obituary number. Add some progressive twists and turns and some neat weaving guitar work and there’s no shortage of atmosphere to soak up.

Songs have the tendency to creep up on you and stick like moss to aged stone. The cemetery these graves inhabit strike as being somewhat wild and unkempt but like all such places we can reflect and easily find the beauty within. Lyrics are as poetic as the song titles. A taste of them found as grey clouds gather on ‘A Scarlet Threnody’ “Paradise to dust I lie within this endless dream Bereft of the seraph’s touch A silhouette – a vision The fallen angel I grieve,” match the lost yearning of remembrance and lost on this profound misery serenade. At times there is a sense that is almost pastoral as we head into abandoned countryside pastures and quiet little graveyards untouched by recent time and progress. The title track with weeping strings giving it a classical edge is one such case in point and one can easily imagine a place where dreams last an eternity.

With spoken word parts and piano intro on ‘As The Earth Falls Silent’ you are just soaking up the rain of ruination when the song suddenly pounds away moving completely in another direction. Then it all slows down leaving the listener disorientated before the melodicism from the keyboards entwines around the depth charge slow drum pounds. Lot’s to take in and a superior sense of song-writing going on here. The band make every song sound totally epic whilst keeping them to a restrained 5-6 minute duration. They each have their own identity too and although it took a few listens the album ended up captivating as it gelled. The last couple of tracks take in everything from poppy hooks and jaunty melodicism to blackened surges of wrath and grief providing an overall experience that’s guaranteed to appeal to a large cross section of doom death devotees, even if conceptually it might not put a smile on your face.

(8/10 Pete Woods)

https://www.facebook.com/motherofgravesband

https://motherofgraves.bandcamp.com/album/the-periapt-of-absence