This March we have been arguing with the vocalist/guitarist of WDISS about the “Russian characters and features” in the music of his band. Now I have to admit, that in the new songs the latters were found by me. It is difficult to say where exactly, but they exist. The story of the first track “The Spring”, according to the author’s words, is based upon the real events: “a small group of geologists was caught up with the vigorous flood of the forest river. Almost all the group has died immediately, except the main hero, who spent few months in trying to get through the taiga to the people. This information helps a lot, when you want to understand the song and some compositional nuances, but personally I think the scream, echoing to the very persuasive growl vocals in one of the parts of this 8-minute track, was not very appropriate. All in all, it is the solid funeral doom metal, bound with firm elements of slow death/doom – the paved “dried” sound is adorned with moderate melodicism and the notorious muddiness is almost absent. It becomes apparent, that the record doesn’t contain any keyboard trace. Thanks to that new WDISS sounds ascetic. I was able to understand and to enjoy the record in depth, and finally I have got quite satisfied with it.
By the means of “Refinement of the Mould”, the band successfully demonstrates all those skills that already were embodied in the first track but I would sort out the guitar soloing, segregating from the non-monotonous but mournful funeral march and diversifying the general impression. In tote, the new material continues the lines of the album “Bitterness of Years That Are Lost”, and the lyrical content supports the music in its best way. Altogether with clean record quality, this gives a good point to consider the release as valuable and interesting for doom-metal fans. For me, in these two new tracks, it was hard to get some leading tone highlighted, because both of them hold the narrative character and probably the latter is the reason for that. And a native born to Donetsk (Ukraine), now living on the territory of Canada, known to some of the doom metal fans as Stigmatheist, continues his own linings, embodying the conception of sinister, infernal funeral doom metal in his project Ego Depths. The only one thing, which makes his material a levelled down one, is the record quality.
All in all, the level is very good, but the sound lacks the distinguished clearness, maybe, because of layered differentially affected guitar parts of up to 30 layers. From one point of view, this is an efficient approach, but from another – it is quite fancy and makes you feel a bit confused, but again – without these things Ego Depths would not be the Ego Depths. “My Hearse Immortal” enters morbidly, with sharpened guitar needles lurking from the crimson haze. This evil, mystic puzzle built up on the doom-carcass and decorated with distorted mass of noises surrounded by the crippled echoes of hostile shadowing. The growl is rigid, non-human, and merciless. The roar of Ego Depths surprisingly neighbors the short, but long awaited acoustic parts, but those ones are in minimum along the 16 minute long track.
So, by the end and finally, the strong, balanced and well thought-out material may be found on this CD. Stylistically, the material stands within the funeral/death doom direction, but if Who Dies in Siberian Slush are writing the music according to time proven canons and they really know what they are doing, while Ego Depths permits itself some serious experiments, as it has been announced in his works earlier. In both cases, you will meet a serious composition talent and their own point of view to the genre, but the recording quality of Ego Depths’ tracks stays a little bit behind that of WDISS... However, for the admirers of Doom cult this release is highly recommended.
Words: Aleks
Who Dies In Siberian Slush | Facebook
Ego Depths | Myspace
MFL Records
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