(written by Islander)
On February 27th Meuse Music will release a new album by the band Ennui from Tbilisi, Georgia. Titled Qroba, it’s the first full-length from the band in more than seven years. In early January we hosted the premiere of a song from the album named “Antinatalism“, and today we’re premiering a second song — “Decima“.
We’ll begin introducing it by again sharing this statement from the label and Ennui:
Qroba means “Vanishment”. It is a story of coming to terms with the inevitable, told through melancholy and contemplation. The fifth full-length album by Ennui blends atmospheric funeral doom and death metal with Georgian poetry and the spirit of the land it was born from. Slow, heavy rhythms, cold harmonies, and haunting melodies evoke a descent into stillness, where pain and peace become one. This is music about the beauty of disappearance, majestic, inevitable and timeless.
Unlike “Antinatalism“, we don’t know for sure what inspired Ennui to name this new song “Decima“, but people familiar with Roman mythology might recognize Decima as one of the three Parcae (the Fates, in English), “the female personifications of destiny who directed the lives (and deaths) of humans and gods” (per this source).
Decima was responsible for measuring a person’s lifespan, and thus possessing knowledge that none of us ever have. Think how differently we would lead our lives if we knew from the beginning how long we would have, and the dates of our deaths. Think how differently we would probably consider our use of each day, knowing the exact number of them available to us.
Well, we may not know what inspired Ennui — the reference to Georgian poetry in the statement quoted above suggests that “Decima” may have a different source — but the music itself is profound.
Like “Antinatalism“, “Decima” is a study in stark contrasts and spellbinding complements. From the first moments the music is immense — immensely heavy, stunningly vast, celestial in its sheen, and earthquaking in its slow, booming progression. It towers and blazes, groans and sparkles, inspiring feelings of wonder and humility.
Having seized attention in such tremendous fashion, Ennui bring forward more contrasts — a slowly wailing melody that weaves threads of mourning, and truly gargantuan growls that reverberate from cavernous depths. That grieving melody sinks ever deeper as it goes, even when the music looms and shines again.
Ennui also introduce another stark contrast, making the music dramatically more gentle and poignant through the melancholy glittering tones of the panduri (a Georgian lute). When the song expands again into star-like vastness and heaving heaviness, Ennui set the stage for a remarkable guitar solo, piercing in its tone and soulful in its intensity, creating a spellbinding intersection of sorrow and high-flying hopefulness.
That closing phase of the song is breathtaking, simultaneously astonishing in its scale and power and stirring in its emotional intensity. Listen for yourselves — and if you missed “Antinatalism“, we’ll give you the chance to hear that song as well:
ENNUI is:
David Unsaved – vocals, guitars, bass, panduri
Sergi Shengelia – guitars
Andrey Azatyan – guitars
Kakhi Kiknadze – guitars
Alexander Gongliashvili – drums
FURTHER CREDITS: Re-amping, mixing and mastering by Greg Chandler at Priory Recording Studios, UK. Drums, vocals, acoustic guitars, and panduri – recorded at Garden Sound Studio. Engineered by Michael Lenz. Recording operated by Igor Gerashchenko. Cover artwork by BenJ Winterkeep. Design and additional artwork by Vladimir Chebakov.
Qroba is available on digipak CD from Meuse Music and digitally from Ennui. To pre-order now, see the links below.
PRE-ORDER:
https://www.m9music.eu/products/ennui-qroba-digicd
https://meusemusicrecords.bandcamp.com/album/ennui-qroba-mmr072
https://ennui-funeral.bandcamp.com/album/qroba
ENNUI:
https://ennui-funeral.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/bandennui
https://www.instagram.com/ennui_doom
MEUSE MUSIC:
https://www.meusemusicrecords.eu
https://www.m9music.eu/
https://www.facebook.com/meusemusicrecords
https://instagram.com/meusemusicrecords
https://linktr.ee/meusemusicrecords