If someone were to tell you that one of the best, most original doom albums of 2013 would be coming your way as a debut release from a band in Siberian Russia, you might be understandably skeptical. But that’s what I’m telling you, in no uncertain terms. Both massively crushing and cosmically ethereal, the first album by Station Dysthymia is a multifaceted gem that no self-respecting fan of doom should miss.

The album’s name is a mouthful, but one that should resonate with fans of classic science fiction: Overhead, Without Any Fuss, The Stars Were Going Out. That’s the last line of The Nine Billion Names of God, by Sir Arthur C. Clarke, one of the most honored and widely read short stories in the genre. It wasn’t chosen as the album’s title arbitrarily. Both in the way the album sounds and in the concepts that inspired the music, Overhead can be thought of as funeral-doom-goes-into-space, which is part of what makes it such a surprising and satisfying discovery.

The music can easily be appreciated without knowing the back story, but there is an undeniable connection between the underlying concepts and what you will hear. Inspired by the writing of not only Clarke but also such luminaries as Isaac Asimov and Stanislaw Lem, the band have tried to capture in their music a tale of humanity’s gradual (and perhaps inevitable) self-destruction, smothering itself in the cradle of limitless petty consumerism in the here and now, while turning away from a future life among the planets and ultimately the stars. That heartbreaking dichotomy between the dead-end road we’re on and the path not taken is at the core of the album’s atmospherics.

Grand concepts and big ideas indeed, but the music is huge, too. Continue reading »