Ataraxy are a Spanish death metal band and this is their second album.
Here we have 48 minutes of death metal with atmospheric doom elements, making for long songs filled with grim moods and shadowy treasures. Continue reading “Ataraxy – Where All Hope Fades (Review)”
This is the second album from death/doom band Hamferð, who are from the Faroe Islands.
On Támsins Likam Hamferð have crafted an emotive 44 minutes of powerful death/doom, with an emphasis on the doom metal side of the equation. Continue reading “Hamferð – Támsins Likam (Review)”
Druid Lord are a death/doom metal band from the US and this is their second album.
I wonder what rotten, infested crypt this has crawled out of? Druid Lord manifest themselves as shambling ghouls, full of the horrors of the night and the terrors that lurk just at the edges of your vision. Continue reading “Druid Lord – Grotesque Offerings (Review)”
Flesh Martyr are a Greek death/doom band and this is their debut EP.
After a typically pointless/throwaway intro, Flesh Martyr offer up three solid songs of death/doom. Continue reading “Flesh Martyr – Echoes of a Distant Weeping (Review)”
This is Mesmur’s second album. They’re an international band and play atmospheric death/doom metal.
Featuring members of Dalla Nebbia, Mesmur play death/doom that offers the listener a little bit more than what they might usually expect to find for something with that appellation. Continue reading “Mesmur – S (Review)”
This is the 15th album from UK metal band Paradise Lost.
After recently reviewing the reissue of Paradise Lost’s seminal 1997 album One Second, it’s somewhat appropriate that I now catch up with their latest album Medusa, released twenty years later. Continue reading “Paradise Lost – Medusa (Review)”
Soijl are a Swedish death/doom metal band and this is their second album.
Soijl play atmospheric death/doom, heavy on the atmosphere and crushing weight. Continue reading “Soijl – As the Sun Sets on Life (Review)”
Ordog are from Finland and play death/doom metal. This is their fifth album.
Okay, so let’s start this review off in no uncertain terms – The Grand Wall is a great album. There. I said it.
The songs follow mournful, misery-drenched themes, as is the norm for this style of music, although Ordog seem quite happy to crank up the aggression when they need to. Due to the overall sorrowful atmospheres though, this is a negatively-charged aggression that keeps within the over-arching framework that the band have set for themselves. Continue reading “Ordog – The Grand Wall (Review)”
Fister and Teeth are both bands from the US, and they’ve teamed up for this split release.
Fister start us off with one track – We All Die Tonight. Although they’ve never graced this site before, Fister’s brand of Sludgy Doom is most enjoyable, and this song is no different.
This is the second album from Nightfall, a US Death/Doom Metal band.
This is the follow up to their 2014 début album The Living Ever Mourn, which was a very enjoyable album of Death/Doom. Darkness Evermore continues their brand of Old-School Death Metal that has a large Doom influence, this time resulting in songs that are longer and more mournful than their first release.
The darkened atmosphere from their début has been expanded upon and fleshed out with more ambition in Darkness Evermore. The essential style of the band is the same, but the melodies are bolder, the emotions heightened, the Doom deeper and the darkness more palpable. This is The Living Ever Mourn 2.0, in the sense that they have improved upon and refined their original formula, which was already pretty damn good to begin with.
The riffs are highly emotive and continue to draw on the wellspring of fertile inspiration that bands such as Dismember, Sentenced, Paradise Lost, Amon Amarth, My Dying Bride, etc. have all drawn from for their powerful guitars and melodies.
These tracks are involving and paint a heady picture of a strange, underworld landscape for the listener to become entranced with.
The Death Metal base is complemented extremely well by the Doom influence, reminding me of the amazing début by Temple of Void; both bands know how to create emotive Metal atmospheres without losing their Death Metal core.
It’s not all slow dirges either, as there’s enough upbeat material here to provide good variety. These parts are still done in a gloomy way though, and they even have a Blackened feel on occasion; there’s a noticeably larger Black Metal influence in general on Darkness Evermore in fact.
Nightfell have successfully followed up their strong début album with an ever stronger second one. Check this out.
