LONGING FOR DAWN

What could be more monotonous than funeral doom, an uninitiated person might ask? What variability does one of the slowest (I would even say ultra-slow) styles of music allow? And yet, here you have Until Death Overtakes Me, and here you have SHAPE OF DESPAIR. Funeral doom in both cases, but the differences are striking! I won't hide my subjectivity -- the Finnish variant, UDOM, doesn't speak to me at all (I'll spare you the explanations), but the latter very much does. Everything about it is dear to my heart. The atmospheric quality of the material, toward which I don't always feel reverence, somehow always sounds fitting in funeral doom (and on this album in particular), coloring the occasionally bleak musical landscapes with a grand variety of gray half-tones. The best possible companions for musical deceleration -- a mighty, rumbling growl and crushingly heavy guitar tone -- are present in abundance on this record, and connoisseurs of slow heaviness won't be left wanting. I won't say anything about the rhythm section, because it simply exists here, and that alone describes all its necessary merits (read: qualities). However, I cannot fail to mention the melodic side of the material, since the dear-to-my-heart severity of these melodies noticeably exceeds their intricacy and sweetness to the ear -- which perhaps excludes the gentler sex from the band's fanbase, but adds unshaven and gloomy admirers, which, as you understand, is actually the priority... The album's four compositions, with all due respect, are by no means a new word in funeral doom, but I am confident they will not leave their "numerous" fans (among whom I count myself) disappointed.