Heavier than plutonium and with gravity weightier than the pull of a black hole, this is a momentous pairing of two funeral doom metal acts. First up we have Evoken from the USA with their first recordings since the excellent 2007 album ‘A Caress Of The Void.’ This is the sort of band you would expect to come from somewhere deep and dark in Holland, they sort of sound more European to me and the annoying thing about them not being from this continent is that I have not been able to see them live. Singer John Paradiso has one hell of a craggy and hoary vocal delivery he really sounds like a slumbering bear that has just been poked with a stick. There are two guitarists and songs like the first of these four ‘Omniscient’ sees their fretwork glistening like shards of the sun beaming down on you. This gives some of the melody a bit of a gothic slant, at times I am reminded of a very slow Fields Of The Nephilim, the growl adds to this too. Melody is also enforced by harmonious keyboards and overall the textures here are breathtaking. The drummer obviously has to hold it all together and he does so with slow determined grit.
If the music makes you think of slow moving dinosaurs epic songs such as ‘The Pleistocene Epoch’ add to the overall vibe. Nothing is in a hurry and this is really mesmerising stuff, easy to lose yourself in its labyrinth folds. It is also highly atmospheric stuff and dreamy as well as dark and deep and to a certain extent claustrophobically stifling. After a long free flowing instrumental ‘Into The Primal Shrine’ Evoken’s contribution, which is pretty much album length to many a band in itself, has finally become extinct.
I had not heard ‘Beneath The Frozen Soil’ although loved the name and had no idea where they came from either and on checking discovered it was closer to home in Gothenburg. I find their style over three songs slightly lighter but no less heavy. ‘Ironlung’ has slow mournful guitars and the vocals have a rasping bite about them The bass is particularly noticeable and there are moments here that remind a fair bit of Xasthur as the depressive nature of the music comes through. It would appear that this band have not done that much in the past just a demo and another split. Despite their relative youth this is a very good and strong offering from a well defined band and it suits the pairing with Evoken really well here. The last part of the duo pronged ‘Monotone Black’ is particularly good and even has a catchy melody running through it.
This is a great disc for those who like their doom particularly slow and heavy and even if one band is more recognisable it is certainly not a CD to turn off after they have done their bit. You could look at BTFS as a bit of an added bonus and in this case they were one that I very much want to hear more of in the future
http://www.myspace.com/evoken
http://www.myspace.com/btfs
