(Sacramento-based DGR has at last caught up with the latest release by the pan-national doom band Aeonian Sorrow and shares his thoughts about it below.)
We’ll pry the mask off of our anonymity somewhat here but a few releases have hit this year that I’m genuinely surprised have flown under the NCS radar. Perhaps it’s just due to the weird flood/non-flood of pacing that releases have seen so far, but some that’ve floated past us feel like releases that have had neon signs hovering over them and calling out to us.
Maybe it’s just due to the fact that release season has been weird. I’m obsessed with finding a groove in things and that includes the flow of the year. Generally speaking, January has been my fall back for checking out Doom releases. It is about as cold as the home town will get (a frigid 29 fahrenheit at worst guys, make sure to hunker down) and also allows for a meditative slowing down of things.
Not this year though, as a certain moron decided to get high on his own supply and proceeded to add an addendum to the year’s most infectious list which took a surprising amount out of them. On top of that, Doom didn’t really hit in the massive wave that it usually does in January. Finland as a whole did, dominating the early part of the year somewhat, but the Doom releases were a little more scattered.
This is a roundabout way of saying that I am legit surprised we missed Aeonian Sorrow‘s new EP From The Shadows when it saw release in late March. We’ve had a pretty good track record of keeping up with the Finnish/Greek superhero team-up, but for some reason From The Shadows flew right past our dazed skulls. Well not anymore, let’s rectify that now.
We all draw different mana from the gnarled tree of life that is the Doom genre, and the overly melodramatic, frigid wastes and draped-in-black coterie of the more melodically minded Doom class has been the fruitful one for yours truly. A group like Aeonian Sorrow with their dual vocalist approach and cinematic scope via keyboards doesn’t have to work that get the fun brain chemicals kicking in with urgency. Even then, an EP like From The Shadows is still going to come with a heavy-handed and early recommendaiton for a few reasons:
One is that within the span of two albums and two EPs, Aeonian Sorrow have managed to earn both their namesake’s dramatic flair and plant a flag in the ground that they’re already up there with some of the genre’s highest luminaries. Second, From The Shadows is near perfect in length for a release wherein Aeonian Sorrow are looking to leave an impression.
At over thirty minutes, From The Shadows has only four songs in its run time and is dynamic enough that things don’t seem to be drifting forever or ruining the attention span. This is thirty-plus minutes of dramatic shadow-play, miserable events taking place just out of view that quickly affect the listener just as much as they do our musical protagonists. It is an apocalyptic testament to loss while also dressing things in the clothing of heart-wrenching loneliness. From The Shadows plays with proven subject matter but still makes this musical trial one worth launching into.
Of the four songs on offer here there isn’t a single one that is under six minutes and forty seconds; even then the bulk of the weight provided for From The Shadows belongs to two songs, “Harbinger Of Ruin” and “The Blackened Forest”. Both of these sail well past the eight and a half minute mark and scratch an itch for those who might’ve been missing Swallow The Sun‘s funereal doom antics on the third Songs From The North disc in terms of tempo, or for those who’ve adored Draconian‘s take on the genre in the last decade.
These are lumbering and mammoth songs that are filled with singing verging on the operatic – and stunning in their own right – wailing shrieks and heaving growls, buttressed by collapsing rhythms and massive string-section motifs that sound as if they’re summoning the end times. The shadows that these songs are emerging from must be abyssal-black in coloring because the slow movements of the music behind it can only belong to an otherworldly creature.
Each drum hit – when the band aren’t in full-on symphonic blast beat mode, which punctuates just how strong a song “Harbinger Of Ruin” is – strikes like a monstrous footfall in Aeonian Sorrow‘s more doom-heavy moments. It’s not the only weapon in their arsenal though, as we summon the spectres of black-clad melodrama for gothic-effect and also some blackened guitar work with the drumming acting as if a weapon battery were behind it. Aeonian Sorrow have mastered being dynamic and heavy to frightening effect.
Usually reserved as an extolling for grindcore efforts or shorter EPs, From The Shadows is one that really is worth taking in as a whole. At a half hour this is a release that may well be an album for some people, but the strength of the four songs here is Olympic level. “Whispers In The Dark” is beefy enough at times to compete in strongman competitions – I’d seriously keep an eye out for a Whispers VerWhispersson in the near future – and “Mist Of Oblivion” is a city-rending way to close out a release. Haunted, heavy, and overtly intense is the funeral pyre that Aeonian Sorrow ignite to send From The Shadows on its final journey home.
From The Shadows is a stunningly good release and one that you should make time for if – like us – you hadn’t made time to do so already.
https://aeoniansorrow.bandcamp.com/album/from-the-shadows
https://aeoniansorrow.com
https://www.facebook.com/aeoniansorrowofficial