(written by Islander)
Roughly three years on from their debut album Keeper of Grief, the Russian band Gvorn will have a new EP named Lovecromancy released on May 13th by Satanath Records. It reflects a change in the band’s stylistic creativity as compared to that first full-length, a change heralded by the EP’s ghastly cover art.
While the debut of this group from Yekaterinburg included ingredients of funeral doom, they have mostly put those aside in favor of traditions of old school death/doom. But in case you assume they are merely plodding along in well-worn ruts, you will learn differently when you hear “Necromantic Dream“, the song we’re premiering today from the new EP.
Not only has Gvorn‘s music changed, so too have the lyrics. Lovecromancy is described as “a short conceptual work that talks about nightmares, necromancy, the undead and other horrors of dark fantasy, heavily inspired by the Elder Scrolls universe.”
In line with those themes and the name “Necromantic Dream“, today’s long song is a death conjurer that is both monstrous and hauntingly surreal, both very heavy and very frail, combining body-shaking grooves, beastly vocals, and passages of entrancing but grief-stricken beauty.
The glistening and gloomy notes of its introductory phase, coupled with swirling audio shimmers, begin leading listeners into that unreal liminal space between the world we know and what lies beyond it. But heavy stalking beats, a clanging bass, and cavernous growls point the way toward something more nightmarish.
Gentle, poignant arpeggios, clear in tone and coupled with head-moving rhythmic patterns, continue to trace fragile yet forlorn filigrees of beauty in the song, creating stark contrasts with the tormented, choking ugliness of the growls. Other contrasts arrive as the music slows and becomes more dismal and more vast, and harrowing screams join in with those gutturals, as if Gvorn are leading us in a descent through a barren and oppressive realm.
They also build tension through vivid hammering beats and wailing guitars that sound increasingly feverish and anguished — only to relieve the tension through a resumed revelation of shimmering and glittering beauty, but then to build it again through ragged chants and deep, rumbling undercurrents.
GVORN is:
Valery Potekhin – vocals
Roman Nadein – bass, vocals (1, 4)
Sergey Semenov – guitars
Vyacheslav Smirnov – guitars
Nikita Chusov – drums
Satanath Records will release Lovecromancy in a jewel-box CD edition (300 copies) with an 8-page booklet. They recommend it for fans of Worm, Evoken, and Ahab, as well as early My Dying Bride and Cemetery Of Scream. The record was mixed and mastered by Anton Kurtekov, and that ghastly cover art is the work of Svetlana Kuprikova.
Check out the links below, and also listen to the first song revealed from the EP, “Empires for Vampires“.
PRE-ORDER:
https://satanath.bandcamp.com/album/sat389-gvorn-lovecromancy-ep-2025
GVORN:
https://gvorndoom.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/gvorn_doom_official
https://www.facebook.com/groups/229891818288809