Drofnosura are a Canadian doom/sludge metal band and this is their second album.
Drofnosura’s Ritual of Split Tongues is a colossal beast of an album. It’s a 63-minute monster, primarily comprised of four epic-length songs, and presents as a mutated entity of mountainous shapeshifting intensity.
Drofnosura deal in an amalgamation of doom and sludge influences that shake the Earth with their resultant output. It’s atmospheric and blackened, with dissonant touches, post-metal depth, and progressive pulses. It’s a record with a strong foundation of emotion that underpins everything, allowing the band’s dark, hideous, unreal creations to leave a mark that’s more than simply a crater. Ritual of Split Tongues is immense and imposing, but also rich in the sort of feeling that most bands who play an ostensibly similar hybrid style don’t commonly achieve.
Ritual of Split Tongues is the sound of two planets being picked up and ground together by an uncaring celestial evil. It’s the sound of system-wide death screams, all diverse and far-ranging, yet merged into one cosmic cry of pain and despair. It’s meaty, impactful stuff. Yet, despite this, Drofnosura aren’t simply one thing though. This may be a harrowing nightmarescape, but it’s also an unexpectedly textured and diverse one. Each song is a world unto itself, with great swathes of dream-soaked wilderness for the listener to explore. Take your time and get lost in the music’s surprisingly warm, hazy embrace.
Drofnosura take their multitude of influences and use them well, letting each express itself to a greater or lesser extent depending on the needs of any given song. This means that the material spans pits of abrasive sludge, hypnotic progressive horizons, plaintive doom metal anguish, otherworldly psychedelic workouts, becalmed post-metal introspection, and much more. Drofnosura are as comfortable it seems wading in the shallows as they are plumbing the abyssal pitch-black depths.
As a very rough approximation of the music’s style, think a mix of bands such as Acid Bath, Charger, Rabies Caste, Neurosis, Today Is the Day, Ulcerate, and Yob. Although certainly not perfect, it should give you an idea of the wonders you could, and should, experience across Ritual of Split Tongues.
This is a record that has come out of nowhere and really impressed. Drofnosura deserve as much of your time as you can spare to experience this remarkable record. Ritual of Split Tongues is something to be savoured and absorbed at length, in order to best let it complete its insidious work.
Essential listening.
Wonderbox Metal 