As I absolutely loved the last album from New Jersey band Evoken, 2007 release ‘A Caress Of The Void’ I was quite happy to sample the bands 1st material which has just been reissued by Displeased Records. What we actually have here is not just their 35 minute first demo ‘Shades Of Night Descending’ from 1994 but also their following two demos from 96 and 97 as well giving you a whopping 70 minutes plus of nihilistic and depressive doom. As the sky outside is completely grey and rain is falling it seems like the perfect time to press play and see what miserable depths this can take me into.
An intro leads us into a gloom where no light shines but a sinister rumbling drone can be heard among what sounds like gongs or wind chimes calmly tolling away. This sets the mood for ‘In Graven Image’ coming in with muddy and heavy guitars and bass and primitive death growls. The band have changed considerably over time but you can hear that they had ideas formed here, albeit perhaps in reverence to the likes of Disembowelment and Thergothon. John Paradiso has remained vocalist from this demo to the current time and other long serving members guitarist Nick Orlando and drummer Vince Verkay are also still in the fold although apparently due to distance Orlando is only a part time member. Tracks here are all lengthy but not too lengthy, slow but not too slow to keep up the interest. Funeral doom is an acquired taste and you probably need to be in a bit of a lethargic mood to fully get to grips with it. There is luckily plenty of atmosphere to be found here as well as sudden feral vocal cries and even melodic gallops to pick you up and dash you against the rocks battering brain matter out in the process. At times like on the actual title track one could be reminded fleetingly of very early Anathema due to the guitar sound and vocals. I think they excel with the mood as well here, I mean even a song title like ‘Tower Of Frozen Dusk’ evinces a picture in the head and the glistening guitars and hefty drum beats here take you to a very cold place. I particularly like the last track on this ‘Into The Autumn Shade’ due to the clanging bell, for some reason it reminds totally of the soundtrack of Return Of The Living Dead at the point where the rain comes down and the zombies rise up, perfect.
The 96 demo consists of two tracks and an outro. ‘Hills Of Arctic Stillness’ sees them still fixating on all things cold and frosty and has some really mournful guitar parts and sudden bursts of fluttering drums and even a death grunt keeping it interesting. There are some clean monkish vocal chants on this one too which work really well and add to the doom. There is no pause here before things flow into the equally sombre ‘Embrace The Emptiness’ and this works well as a continuous piece of wrist slitting angst for those who can take it. These songs here are longer and more of an endurance test it has to be said and one wonders if by now Evoken had perhaps encountered ‘Epistemological Despondency’ by our very own Esoteric and decided to up the ante a bit! They may have destroyed a few prospective labels with the length of this one so for the 97 demo simply delivered one ten minute song ‘Among the Whispering Spirits’ and an outro. With this I am hearing certain shades of My Dying Bride who I thought had been seeping into the last demo a bit but is more evident here. But that is not to say that Evoken are not presenting things in their own way at all and add plenty of melody to this somnolent misery serenade.
This is well worth picking up if you are into your seriously depressive doom although you may well want to listen to it in three parts as it is a bit much to take in one sitting. It has certainly made me want to go and listen to the group’s more recent stuff again but not right now, a vat of coffee is more than necessary.
http://www.myspace.com/evoken
