Tag funeral

Introducing Terrific Tuesday – Funeral Doom Edition

Peter Jones Leave a comment

When I first fired up this blog I had a couple of ideas about what I wanted to do. Initially I was mostly basing it off other music blogs I frequent. The idea was, thus, to mostly do reviews and such.

It didn’t take long to realize that, while I am a pretty avid consumer of new music, there just isn’t something new coming out on a regular enough basis that I want to consume and write about that it was going to be a productive writing avenue. So I started thinking about other things, and thus my 30 albums in 30 days was born, followed by some other ideas. 

Then I got lazy, took over a year off from writing. This time around I decided that I wanted to have some sort of plan to what I write, and so I came up with ideas for specific days. Enter Terrific Tuesday (and a few other ideas such as New Music Monday). On Tuesdays (not promising every Tuesday, mind) it will be a chance to write about something I think is just that, terrific. Maybe an entire album, maybe a song, maybe something else. All that needs to happen is I think it is terrific. Let’s get this party started.

That’s right, we are talking Funeral Doom today. Funeral Doom is freaking terrific. At the same time, I will be the first to admit it absolutely is not for everyone. Funeral Doom takes the slower, heavier elements of Doom and turns them up to 11. No, actually, it turns them up to like 19. 

First off, this is slow music. Like really, really slow. It is ponderous, with songs easily in the double digits in terms of length (some even up to 30, 60 or even 80 minutes long for a single song). There is a huge hurdle to overcome in that regard. This isn’t music that works on a casual listen. It demands time, attention, and a significant investment from the listener. 

It is also heavy, in the most literal sense of the word. Funeral Doom is akin to having more and more weight added to your back, weighing you down minute after minute. Harsh vocals abound, often addressing equally weighty topics. Again, not for the casual listener. This isn’t feel good music. 

But it is cathartic. So, so cathartic. 

Some people get that. Others don’t, and that’s okay. But for those of us who appreciate the power of music to take us on mental and emotional journeys, Funeral Doom fits that bill. Sure, it may be like being run through a meat grinder. But coming out the other side, there has been some sort of release. For me it is often a huge release of tension or anxiety I have been holding in. Through the weight of the music, these elements are pressed right out of me. 

And the relief that can come in that catharsis is beautiful and often so welcome. And terrific. 

Slow – IV Dantalion

Peter Jones Leave a comment

Years ago, my family and I went to Myrtle Beach in South Carolina. My oldest daughter and I, being the more adventurous and swimmerly of the crew (my youngest may be staking claim to that throne though), were out in the Atlantic, swimming and playing in the waves.

She had gone back to shore, and I was still out in the water. Shortly, I realized that I was actually getting further away from the shore. Yes, I was caught in a current and being pulled out to sea. As the saline waves cascaded over me, I had a brief moment when I truly thought that I might die. The ocean, so vast, so unfathomable, so uncaring for us mere mortals, had me in its relentless grasp, and cared not one whit about me or my plight. That inexorable current was all that mattered to me, I had to escape. Being honest with myself, at that moment, I felt a dread like none I have ever felt in my life.

I’ve been held up at gunpoint, I’ve been nearly plummeted off a steep washout with the river a hundred feet or more below me, I’ve been in biking accidents where I hit my head hard enough to lose consciousness. I’ve felt fear.

Yet never before, and never since, have I known dread as I knew it that day, in the clutches of the inhuman deep.

Slow, a two person band hailing from Belgium, must have felt similar dread at some point. The music of IV – Dantalion perfectly encapsulates that same sense of dread and helplessness I felt, embraced by the Atlantic.

Slow could not be more appropriately named. This is funeral doom at its finest. The music is incredibly slow, almost suffocatingly so. Songs march with an aptly funereal pace, feeling inevitable in their progression toward some sort of finality. And that finality is not going to be some happy occurrence. Seven tracks, with the album weighing in at a hefty 78 minutes, this isn’t a casual listen.

And yet I find it incredibly compelling. There is sadness here. There is loss, pain, fear. I think we all identify with those feelings. And while these may not be pleasant, the musical conveyance of said emotions carries with it a profound power. It allows us to process some of these feelings. It creates and atmosphere in which we can become introspective, looking inward and discovering a strength inside ourselves to overcome the vagaries that life will throw our way.

It is that cathartic ability I find so profound in the music of Slow. The guitars are heavy, crushingly so. The vocals, predominantly deep and throat ripping growls. The drums march out a sepulchral beat, relentless in their march. Yet layered over all this are beautiful keys and effects, almost sounding choral at times. When the music does increase in tempo, it is often simply in service of propelling one to the unavoidable conclusion.

Yet, buried in this doom, these moments of beauty and clarity serve to provide glimmers of hope. I don’t finish IV – Dantalion and feel like the hero has won, evil has been vanquished, and all is right in the world. But it doesn’t end feeling as though all is lost. Slow is music for realists. It is for those who know life can suck, but that we can fight back and make it through. This isn’t anthemic music to get you pumped to push on. But it reminds you that overcoming is part of the trial of life, and the ultimate goal for us all. We get kicked, we get beat, we are tired, fed up, worn out. But we persist.

In the end, Slow play music for those who are willing to be just as relentless as the ocean. And some days, relentless is the very best we can possibly be.

Bell Witch – Mirror Reaper

Peter Jones Leave a comment

Doom metal. It is epic, often majestic, heavy in the ponderous sense of the word It tends to be on the slower side, often with powerful, soaring vocals. Birthed in the roots of Black Sabbath, and honed to a real edge with the release of Candlemass’ essential Epica Doomica Metalicus, it is one of my very favorite sub-genres of metal.

And then there is funeral doom.

Funeral doom is a different beast all together. True, it is still rooted in doom metal, and shares many of the same hallmarks. It also borrows from doom/death. It then fuses these elements into one of the most punishing, extreme, esoteric, and inaccessible styles of music out there.

Take Mirror Reaper by Bell Witch. First off, look at that artwork. No, really. Look at it. It is beautiful. But it is also haunting, menacing, and creepy as hell. Then look at the song list. It consists of “Mirror Reaper”, and… well, that’s it. Yes, the album Mirror Reaper has a single song, the track titled “Mirror Reaper”. And then look at the run time for the album. It is 83 minutes and 15 seconds.

Add that all up and, in my experience, there are basically two reactions. On the one hand, I have seen almost revulsion, and instant reaction of “no way!” It is too much, too long, too ponderous. I get that. But on the other hand, it can also lead to fascination.

That’s what happened to me. I wasn’t familiar with the band prior to the 2017 release of Mirror Reaper, but I was instantly intrigued and decided I had to know more. Context is often king, and in this case that holds very true. Bell Witch is a 2 person band, just bass, drums, and vocals. And after the 2015 release of Four Phantoms, the drummer Adrian Guerra, passed away. The band carried on, with Jesse Shreibman joining bassist Dylan Desmond to continue the band. Mirror Reaper acts as a tribute to their lost brother, and that sense of loss permeates every minute of this epic.

The music is very stripped down. It is ponderously slow, with haunting clean vocals, and low, guttural growls that shake the roots of the earth. The drums plod, slowly building over the course of the song. Often the music builds, slowly, only to be stripped back down to a single, sustained note. The bass alternates between clean and clear, to heavily distorted and grinding.

Yet Bell Witch expertly prevents the music from every becoming too, well, too anything. It could be slower, but it doesn’t. It could get much, much heavier, but it restrains. Just when you think it is going to be too much of the same thing, and become boring, it will switch it up just enough to keep it interesting. For me, that is really what makes this such a fascinating album. It is too much, really, I recognize it is. But it balances all of its excess with such a level of care, concern, and skill that it is a haunting work I find myself drawn back to time and again.

https://youtu.be/10q1ZJyLXFk