renkls
I came across this band by accident one day, perusing long metal tracks on Youtube (because that's how I spend my time. Oh god, how depressing does that sound...), and was immediately focused on this album, their latest, one 47 minute funeral doom epic.
The band themselves is interesting in that their lyrics are based in a dead language, and they play quite a dynamic mix of funeral doom with multiple influences. Unlike the album length epics of Monolithe, this had a darker tone to it overall, beginning with a dark piano melody, that quickly gives way to the heaviness of this album. It's all very well done, perhaps not as innovative as Monolithe, but still emotionally driven and powerful in its execution.
Over the length of the album there's a few different styles touched on, we even get some black metal vocals at about the 28 minute mark, which were sort of unexpected, but work reasonably well. Pulling the album apart, there's times where it feels like it just uses a lazy segue to pull the piece together to a cohesive whole, but upon relistening, these instances don't jump out and it does feel like one 47 minute epic. Generally, the vocals are delivered with a doomy tone, aggressive and formidable which perfectly suits the music.
One negative for my sake is the drums sometimes feel stale and lifeless amidst the impressive guitar work. This was most notable for me in the black metal lyric parts where they just seemed to drag along without any standouts.
Funeral doom is a pretty difficult genre to pull off and keep entertaining and involving, but here I think Ea have done so. It's well worth finding a copy of this album if you're a fan of funeral doom and have 47 minutes to spare for an involved listen.