Doom. Now there's a divisive word. As my long suffering friends know all too well, I'm very much usually found in the True Doom camp so what the Hell am I doing with this chunk of Brazilian Doom/Death? Simple. Never let labels get in the way of your enjoyment of good music.
I've been intrigued by what these guys have been doing for a little while but this is the first opportunity I've had to sit down with a whole album. And the first thing that hits me? Huge, great resonant melody.
Lost Path to Ma Noa arrives on a lonely tune before the full riff slides in beneath and gruff vocals begin to intimate the weaving path ahead. It winds it's slow, careful way Funereal like but a touch more up tempo, a whisper of early Paradise Lost in it's gothic wing beats. Mesmerizing and quite beautiful. Akakor slips in smoothly behind with subtle shifts in pace and the dark, rich keyboard sounds the backdrop to low riff and the slow, winding lead lines. Enter The Halls Of Petrous Power pushes a little harder but no less stately. The Shrines Of Ibez adds a melancholy so reminiscent of While Heaven Wept and simply bleeds pain and passing time.
There is a power here. This is not background music; lend it only half an ear and you will only find a quarter of the sound. Ponderous, majestic and stately it wraps so perfectly around the bands name. Like the best Doom of any stripe it creates a sound both expansive in its huge scope and yet with the character to wrap around you like thick velvet and draw you, personally, into the dusty heart of some cyclopean hall of antiquity. It uses it's palate with the brush strokes of masters. Death, Funeral, Doom and Black Metal sounds mixed seamlessly and with a great ability to blur. Take the nine minutes of The Fallen Race: beginning with a chorus of horns, it threads a thick, slow buzz riff worthy of Norrt through some lonely piano notes. The half growled, half spoken vocals lead you up from these foothills to the summit where the emotional guitar refrain wanders over a doom riff from the same world as Orodruin. This falls away piece by piece into a sparse guitar hinterland, a desolate place that strips away your defenses for the harsher end.
The title track is the fitting end to this work. Skepticism of pace to begin, it stretches twin melodies over the monolithic riff, collapsing the whole into a great swell of floodwater keyboards before pressing on to leave a haunted space in it's wake.
Nothing is longer than it needs to be, subtlety weaves deep, dark colours throughout and each movement slips into its space in the whole with the grace of an Empress alighting her throne.
If you like it slow and mournful and rich with melody you need this. Now.
http://www.myspace.com/mythologicalcoldtowers
Gizmo
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