Finally, the weekend is upon us. What better way to kick it off than with the latest installment of "Funeral Doom Friday". For those who are new to this column; each week features a new or classic album from the realm of extreme doom. Much of funeral/death doom's might comes from an oppressive emotional weight and the use of death or black metal motifs (played at a trudging pace, of course.)
Pioneers like Mournful Congregation, Evoken, and Esoteric have mastered this blend of dirge and destruction. For 25 years, they have methodically built compositions that stretch for dozens of minutes all while keeping fans enthralled. Time has elapsed since the days of Thergothon and much like the world around us, the genre has evolved. Today's modern bands contort the very construct of the genre, breeding darkly refreshing new work. Their work thankfully gives this column plenty of material to share.
Enjoy this week's post and check out prior features here. Please feel free to also share thoughts or suggestions for future installments in the comments section below or to me directly on Twitter.
Ever since they released From Outer Spheres… Death in 2016, this column has anxiously awaited a follow-up from Vancouver's Temple of Abandonment. Their first offering, a 32-minute track, showed early greatness in all things glacially-paced. It even cracked the column's top 5 albums list in 2016. On their newest demo, Chasm of the Horned Pantheon: Through Your Death, They Live, the Canadian quartet sounds like a band primed for full-length success.
Chasm tracks two new songs from Temple of Abandonment. Contrasts in their new music arise immediately into "Crypt Born." Lurching and vile death doom consumes roughly the first five and last three minutes of the piece. It's in "Black Ibex" where much of the oppressive atmosphere of their first demo lives. There is more of an emphasis on the funerary tropes the band built their foundation from single crash cymbal hits to solemn guitar chords. Where "Crypt Born" is a cavernous, modern approach to death doom that highlights much of the Pacific Northwest scene; "Black Ibex" is a display of plodding, menacing slow burn.
Stream the brand new demo now. Purchase a digital copy of it now from Temple of Abandonment's Bandcamp. Physical copies will be available soon. Also, follow the band on Facebook.
