Australian Doomsters Malignant Aura lurch into this album with the kind of dark melancholy I want from all heavy music, but expect from doom. This is the band's second album. "The Pathetic Festivals" finds them delving deeper into the death metal side of the death doom equation, with a more Morbid Angel-like feel. It features a commanding stop that emerges with a mechanical grind of the guitars. Midway into the song, they relent to the darkness, and things ebb down into a more dismal, yet spacious cavern of sound.
The low gurgle of the vocal complements the twisting riff of "Languishing in the Perpetual Mire". When every thing breakdowns into the woeful cry of discordant atmosphere, it feels almost like free-form jazz. It is ambient in a way that halts the momentum, and places the focus in a more intangible mood. As a 13-minute song, this is eating up a chunk of time. They pulls things back together, but even then it does not feel as focused as the first two songs. It takes another two minutes before they wind back around the Morbid Angel-like riff. I like the doomy melodic riff they solo over that closes the song.
I think doom is who they are, but the pull of Morbid Angel is strong, on "Under a Crown of Anguish." the depression wins out. When they go doom, they go full-on funeral doom and do not mess around. There are no aspirations to be Paradise Lost. These twin guitar harmonies are one of the strongest elements of their sound. The last song finds them walloiwing in the sorrow of doom. It does build but a flow of double that acts mroe as an undercurrent than a full on aggressive assualt.I will give this oen a 9, it is certainly an abum fans of death doom need to take note of this year. Being released by Memento Mori.
/p> pst22
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