If ever there was a soundtrack to an extreme metal Sunday morning, then Black Autumn have it. Combining the crushing intensity of funeral doom with snail-paced atmospheric black metal, this would be the perfect way to spend a few hours when there really isn’t anything to do but ponder the meaning of existence through the prism of your hangover, throw together a fry up and put on a bit of laundry (aw come on – we’ve all got to do it sometime!). It’s just great, all encompassing, almost ambient blackened doom that offers up gloomy hooks and dark melodies with a light brush of keyboards, sorrowful solos and industrial electronica here and there. I’m not saying this is easy listening by any means and I’m certainly not saying this is not expertly crafted and weighted with plenty of emotion. It’s gloomy, intense and with added fine textures. But it’s also shrugs off any pressure to descend into bottomless depths or pretentious meandering. Confident in its mission to cast a grey wash over 40 minutes of your day rather than plugging away for twice as long as your mum’s two-hour eco-friendly cycle.
It’s round about exactly where I am when my brain has not quite clicked into gear and I’m not quite ready for anything that wants to either a) challenge my musical boundaries or b) melt my brain. Playing the reflective, melancholy tones of fifth track The Distance while sitting on the edge of the bed, trying to remember when you got your t-shirt drenched in beer and getting rocked by the occasional flashbacks; listening to first track Losing the Sun while heading to the Co-op in a light drizzle of rain to get some bacon and sausages; and making some of those life affirming decisions to From Whence We Came – the ones you can only really make when you’ve completely wasted two hours, eaten two bacon sandwiches and drunk four cups of very strong coffee.
If, like me, you’re instinctively attracted to all things on the black side of doom as much as its other more hairy, stoner edges, then this will appeal. If you like the idea of funeral doom but sometimes find that its gravitational plod just a little too slow, then Black Autumn might just be the band for you. This is riff-centred but with enough atmosphere to turn any unpromising morning into a haven of textured greys. The riffs are steady and gloomy, but, as always with this kind of stuff there is something else at the edges. The never-ending grey mixed with the thrill of total darkness, but also the promise of something else, dare I say, even a ray of hope and optimism.
Band mastermind M. Krall has not been short of good ideas and has already punted out four other full-length releases since 2007. Ghosts At Our Windows might serve as a slightly better introduction to the band rather than this latest offering if more obvious doomy hooks are your thing. But then again this time round things have definitely been finessed with all the layers, whether it be the elephantine riffs, drifting piano or the distant keyboard strings, at various times coming together in perfect unison. The vocals are nicely embedded in the music – perfect for this kind of sound compared to most doom death bands which tend to over-emphasise the singer. That, and the focus on the composition and subtle ambient elements, means this is often on the cusp of being an instrumental album. So, even though you may well have the nagging feeling that you’ve heard this all before, what the one-man composer behind Black Autumn is very good at is blending all those elements together. Something for your blackened doom arsenal then, even if its effects are more about wearing down your battlements rather than blowing a hole clean through the side of them.
(7/10 Reverend Darkstanley)
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