Aphonic Threnody – A Silence Too Old (Review)

Aphonic Threnody are a UK funeral doom band and this is their sixth album.

New Aphonic Threnody is always a gloomy, miserable treat. Of Loss and Grief, The Great Hatred, The All Consuming Void, and the colossal The Loneliest Walk were all exemplars of funeral doom, so make sure you check them out if you haven’t. This time around, the artist behind Aphonic Threnody gives us 64 minutes of darkness in the shape of A Silence Too Old, which, as an added treat, features the ultra-prolific Déhà on vocals.

A Silence Too Old is a paean to loss and woe, delivered via an expressive medium of world-ending funeral doom. The six long songs are awash with despondent melodies and that sweep the listener away in their sorrowful embrace. The songs are slow and graceful, gradually unfolding with inevitable finality, drawing the listener in, only to shower them with sadness. This is a record high in atmospheric depth, and a record to get lost in for sure.

The music is dark and hopeless, but not without layers, nuance, or detail. When it’s crushing, it’s suffocating, but never loses its emotion-rich mood-focused approach to heaviness. When it’s sparse and introspective, it gleams with a textured loneliness that brims with regretful potency. It’s a shaded world that Aphonic Threnody inhabit, despite its paradoxically lightless nature; the songwriting allows the music to expand from its funeral doom foundations, building structures of crestfallen beauty and intimate devastation. The vocals, as you’d expect from who is delivering them, cannot be faulted. Whether it’s an ocean-deep growl, or a mournful clean, or anything else, Déhà puts in a sterling performance throughout.

The songs are surprisingly hook-filled, although this should be understood within Aphonic Threnody’s doomy context. There is a memorability here that surpasses that of most funeral doom. The melodies obviously play a part in this, but they’re certainly not the only component – the guitars, and unexpectedly, the bass both contribute to the creation of massive soundscapes that are very well-developed. The music may be slow, but its combination of atmospheric weight and quality songcraft means that they are remarkably enjoyable.

A Silence Too Old is a record that immediately establishes itself as top tier funeral doom, but like all albums of this ilk, truly reveals itself after multiple spins. It’s immersive and absorbing, and the artist behind Aphonic Threnody has once again demonstrated why I hold his work in such high regard.

Very highly recommended indeed.