This is the third album from Spanish doom metal band Todomal.
Graveyards of Joy brings us 43 minutes of compelling material. Todomal’s style can be described as doom metal mixed with progressive rock stylings and atmospheric depth. Atmospheric doom, in essence. The promo blurb names Pink Floyd, Katatonia, Candlemass, and Anathema, which sets the scene nicely, (you could also throw in Devin Townsend, Green Carnation, and Wolverine as touchpoints too).
Graveyards of Joy is a record with cinematic scope and vast emotive appeal. It’s instantly arresting from the very start, yet like all great albums takes time to truly reveal its full strengths. Despite this, the music’s many assets are obvious. Graveyards of Joy is chock full of luscious doom vistas, textured detailing, gorgeous synths, feeling-rich guitars, and clean singing that drips with emotion.
Todomal are very adept at creating their art in such ways as to maximise the emotional impact of the songs. The music is extremely well-written, benefiting from an innate grandeur that doesn’t feel ostentatious. Rather, it arises naturally from the sonic stories that the band craft. It’s utterly immersive, transporting the listener into Todomal’s expressive world completely. It’s also concise; Todomal know exactly what they want to say, and build their songs accordingly. Whereas other bands might feel the need to stretch the songs out into longer epics, most of the nine tracks on this release are shorter than you’d probably expect given their massive nature. They are epic in an organic, unforced way, so don’t need a superfluous duration. Essentially, each song is the length it needs to be to deliver the goods.
Todomal have many strengths, but one of the primary ones is that they basically sound like themselves. Yes, you can detect certain influences and reference other bands, like those previously mentioned, but ultimately Graveyards of Joy sounds distinct from the majority of what’s out there at the moment. That alone is worthy of high praise, never mind the fact that this offers the listener a fantastic collection of premium prog doom songs on top of this.
Graveyards of Joy is a darkly beautiful masterpiece of atmospheric progressive doom metal. It’s a gem of multifaceted richness, and deserves a place in anyone’s music collection.
Essential listening.
Wonderbox Metal 