This is the second album from German doom band Carrion Mother.

On Nothing Remains Carrion Mother are channelling their internal harshness in no uncertain terms. In fact, this has now become external harshness that has spread across four tracks, and lasts 53 minutes. Nothing Remains is a colossal monster of harshness and, well, more harshness.

This harshness takes the form of ugly doom and tainted, corrupted sludge. Steeped in despair and lonesome misery, Nothing Remains sounds like a monument to the destruction of everything and everyone. The band’s music is so venomously ugly and vile that one can only imagine that it caused the very Armageddon it now laments. It’s almost as if the lengthy songs act as apocalyptic funeral paeans for a world that was scourged of life by the very music that mourns its passing.

The guitars are emotive, in a foul, negative way. Post-metal elements and haunting melody can be found here and there on the album, but for the most part Nothing Remains is a non-stop cascade of distorted anguish, forlorn drums, and the type of vocals that I can only describe as charismatically pained. This is heavily atmospheric music, and draws the listener into its bleak, lifeless world with an affecting grim enthusiasm for its subject.

Nothing Remains is an album of darkness, but one that’s textured and comprehensively-wrought. Despite the picture I may have painted so far, it’s a varied listen, with various moods and paces used across the playing time. All of them are harrowing and gloomy, but in different ways depending on the part of any given song.

Carrion Mother are clearly a band that are heavily invested in what they are doing, and this comes across in the music’s rich negativity and dying melodic appeal. Well-written and delivered doom/sludge metal like this is at a premium, and Nothing Remains is extremely good.

Very highly recommended.