Ελληνικά
Genre: Funeral Doom
Country: United Kingdom
Label: Doomentia Records
Year: 2014
The band started off as a project by Riccardo Veronese (bass, guitars), member of Gallow God & Dea Marica and Roberto Mura (vocals), who is also a member of Dea Marica & Urna. The keyboards were played by the –now departed from the band- Kostas Panagiotou (Pantheist), while the remaining two musicians took part in the band from a distance, Marco Z. on the drums (Arcana Coelestia, Urna) from Italy and cello player Abel Libisch from Hungary. Thus, it would be fit to claim that Aphonic Threnody is a multinational band.
The band’s sound is 90ish and is influenced by many of the bands that culminated at that era (some of them still do). “Modern” sound and other innovations have no place in Aphonic Threnody’s outlook of death doom. So let’s look at the songs track-by-track:
The Ghost’s Song. The album sets off with a excerpt from the movie “Mama” (the CGI ruined the movie for me) and continues on a rather fast -for the genre’s standards- pace. The keys, with their “organ” sound and the lead guitar that accompanies the rhythm one, have a leading role in the song –and in the rest of the album- . In the bridge the band structures choir vocals. Together with the harsh ones, which vary from growls to screams, create a vivid mosaic of soundscapes. Towards the ending, the song gears down and finishes with a doom orgasm. Fantastic!
Death Obsession. After the three minute long keyboard, cello and guitar intro, the song enters in a mid-tempo state and carries on in the same motif until 11:30, when the double pedals on the bass drum enter the scenery for the first time, triggering a small outburst of fury. The song comes to its completion with a three minute atmospheric part, where the cello, the keys and Roberto’s raspy recitation and desperate screams, submerge the -yet numb- listener in oceans of sorrow. It’s cycle is now in utter completion.
Dementia. The speed now reduces to nadir, in this requiem that is named Dementia and allows no hint of hope to escape from its grasp until the very end. Pain, gloom, despair…
The Children’s Sleep. This song bares many alternations in terms of rhythm and sentiment. The guitar, the cello, the keys and the voice take, in rotation, the lead role in this song’s act. Still, the song left me with a sense of lack of coherence, plus even a drop of banality in some of the riffs, without all that placing the song near average.
Our Way To The Ground. The piano intro provides the note which the rest of the instruments follow in this simple, melodic depressing song. At the end of this forcefully unadorned song, I think I distinguished a beam of hope (!?!), glimmering at the depths of the bottomless darkness.
“When Death Comes” is an utterly essential release for the fans of the genre, and it left me wandering just how many gems made in ’14 are out there waiting for us to discover them…
5/6
