(Andy Synn provides this review of the latest album by The Drowning from Wales.)

For those of you unfamiliar with Welsh Death/Doom disciples The Drowning, allow me to provide a quick introduction – forming in 2003, and releasing their debut EP, Withered, in 2005, the band have thus far produced three (now four) albums of impressively potent, though widely underappreciated, doom-laden delights which largely eschew the genre’s more gothic leanings in favour of a more vigorous, riff-based approach – albeit one still swathed in layers of sombre melody and creeping gloom – that’s a little less My Dying Bride and a little more Novembers Doom in sound and style.

In that same spirit of introduction it’s probably also worth offering up a quick a word of warning as well. At an hour and six minutes in total, and with an average song length which hovers around the eight-and-a-half minute mark (not counting brief intro track “Dolor Saeculi”), the band’s new album, Senescent Signs, is certainly a significant endeavour, and one not necessarily best-suited for those simply in search of a quick fix of melancholy to (un)brighten their day.

However, that doesn’t make it a ponderous listen. In fact, for the most part, these eight tracks (and one intro) pack more than enough of a punch (not to mention a solemn sense of gloomy glamour) to render this album capable of going toe-to-toe with the best of them. Continue reading »