The old school of discovering music: Ordered the debut album of Forlesen from their former label Dusktone Records, got a promo compilation CD and a respectable discount voucher, ordered three other CDs. And if you judged the label just by those the profile could hardly be sharper, as all of these album walk somewhere on a line stretched between Dungeon Synth and Funeral Doom.
The most Dungeon of this bunch certainly is this dark mass of horror movie piano, Dark Ambient and voices lamenting and screaming in fear and pain from Italy. Even though it definitely is heavy and reeks of blood-curdling Black Metal atmosphere I wouldn't even categorize "Norma Evangelium Tenebris" as Metal per se, since there is very little drumming and the crushing chords (are those even guitars at all or just distorted synths?) seldom perform riffs, but are mostly rather a powerful extension of the synth score. If you need a jam to break into ancient vampire tombs full of dusty spiderwebs... you're welcome! With most of the tracks being quite long for what they are, this album surely won't the easiest listening experience for everyone, but the good old super fan of Glenn Danzig's "Black Aria" in me really digs Noctu's spirit.
Speaking of long tracks: This "Forgotten Epitaph" consists of only three of those, with an average length of almost twenty minutes. And albeit though the Romanian Cursed Cemetery begins the album even more Ambient and minimalistic than Noctu, it soon shows that actually a lot more happens during this time, including not only fully fleshed out eery Funeral Doom arrangements, but also forays into other genres, including Black Metal outbursts or spiraling into Psychedelic jams. If "Black Terrain" from the aforementioned Forlesen had an underworld sibling raised in a demonic crypt under a defiled chapel, it could surely sound like this. An excellently paced Doom colossus, rich in dark variety.
Not only its running time of over sixty-six minutes makes the new album of Ego Depths the most Funeral Doom release of these three. The one-man project of mastermind Stigmatheist (as you can surely tell by the name a Ukrainian now residing in Canada) builds a gigantic wall of slowliest crawling Metal, droning in a cacophonous overwhelming overload of riffs, synths and guturral vocals, including even some instances of throat singing. While most of "Elläkkairavertta" bleeds with bleak and brutal sadness, the album also finds time for ritualistic tribal drones. It's a long demanding journey - but the view from the highest vantage points of the path is quite spectacular.
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