Mountaineer : " Bloodletting"

You do not have to get very far into this album to hear this band is doing something very different in terms of what it means to be doom. How doom they actually are is another matter. When they do bring the heavy it feels more likea sludge band. They are making interesting music no matter the genre they are most intent on defying. There both sung vocals anre harsher roars. Shoe gaze has played major influence on their sound. There is a more forcefully sung vocal to "the Weeds I have Tended ".  While the album sounded great through the computer speakers that tend to be far to mid rangey for metal, putting ear buds in brought the guitat tone home and made the metal in whaat they do much more evident. Things are more melancholy than they are dark. It is a mood I can work with. The more Jesu like sound comes to the forefront on the hypnotic "Shot Through With Sun Light". There are some interesting layers to this arrangement that keep the song moving.

With what ever flavor of post metal a band is bringing to the table it is easy for the song to numb you out with the drone. These guys still manage to engage you while taking you for a ride with their narcotic sonics. There is more of a Pink Floyd feel to the guitar of "To Those We've Said Goodbye" .  Three minutes in the are hitting the kind of cinematic drone that is more common of your average instrumental post rock band. The vocals do come in to break away from this trope. They are very calmly sung. with become more ominous with the more foreboding storm carried in the guitars of the title track. It is very melodic. Not hooky. The vocals are just another texture. It is the groove that drives "South to Infinity" that shows what the band is really capable of. The screamed vocals are mixed back way further than where the sung vocals sit.

They step away from metal for more of a tense indie rock styled strum with "Apart". The plainitive vocals come closer to being hooky than what we have heard up to this point. The vocals come up further in the mix so the lyrics are very clear on "Ghost Story". This finds them making a much more accessible stab at song writing. The guitars still come in with some weight behind them. This I suppose is the last song, but their bandcamp page has "Still" listed as a bonus track so I will count it for the purpose of this review, it is shoe gaze more long the lines of Hum. The vocals more obscured by the fuzzed out guitar. I will round this up to a 9.5 as they have dones something different here and it worked really well. Not on the Deafheven band wagon, nor are they ripping off Pallbearer.

Glare of the Sun : "Theia"

This band out of Austria offers a more dramatic and progressive take on death doom. Progressive in the sense they are not using the same tired formula. This is on the more well produced European spectrum of death metal. So if you are looking for something more dense and dirty this is not it. That is not to say they do not have grit as they do. They have strummed clean guitar and sung vocals to help break up things as early as the first actual song.The third song grows more atmospheric as well as darker. It indulges their doom side. It flows well and has dynamics. They continue to grow more melodic as the song that follows has a feel of mid-period Katatonia. The mood and tempo are still down trodden.

Even when the vocals get more throaty they hang onto their most melodic styling. The guitar is sluggish thought the drums take on a more mid paced drive before the distortion cranks to life. It reminds me of a slower version of Enslaved at times. They continue to use the low breathy spoke word vocal for the darker more melodic calms before the storm. When the sung vocals do come in they are well done and not overstated. They are varied sometimes coming in as a resonate baritone. The drummer doesn't over play either , which is weird considering their death metal leanings. His playing is very nuanced. About seven songs in things begin to run together for me. The album's third act does find it falling into more of a formula .

Despite having a strong start then losing steam before getting to the finish line. I think it succeeds more often than not and I like the risks they take to distance themselves from the pack. Perhaps they are not as good as say Nailed to Obscurity, but this album is well produced and sounds good . I will give it a 8.5, though I won't get much further play from it. If you are a fan of melancholy death doom heavy on melody, then this is worth your time. .
7.9/ 9

Gothtober- Hanging Garden - "I Am Become"

Goth metal is a term that makes you think of either Type O Negative or something like Theater of Tragedy. There are a few shades lighter and darker than are romantic or elegant enough to warrant that title. This gloomy band from Helsinki has returned to create some sounds that come closer to the Theater of Tragedy side of the coin. Finland seems to be the breeding ground for goth inflected metal. So these guys might be named after a Cure song , but they are less flowery than most. I suppose an ex-death metal band who now mainly works with melody like November's Doom might be a good reference point, as they do lapse back into the death metal vocals, though are more often more melodic than not when doing so. With zero fan fire they bust into the opening song. "Hearthfire" has more drive than the opener. The guitars sound better than anyone the previous recordings I have heard from these guys. The verse starts off with a low spoken vocal that trades off for a growl. Cleaner guitars lead into the melodically sung "Elysium" . The vocals have a similar tone to the clean vocal style employed by Opeth or Enslaved. The growled vocals join in soon enough and add some muscle to the sound.

"Our Dark Design" has an interesting blend of sounds like is actually original while falling into what might be thought of as goth metal. When I just let this album play it sometimes becomes hard to tell one song from another as there is a formula to their dynamics that finds them retracing their sonic footprints back to the similar places. The uses of the synth sounds that imitate more bass like tones provide a darkness that is one of the albums strengths as those are my favorite places. Even when on a song like "Kouta" it makes them sound more like a metallic Depeche Mode. They continue to also go to interesting places with the use of effects on the guitar. This album is excellently produced.There is a more straight forward metal to "From Iron Shores" even with the sung vocals that don't invoke metal.

Considering their name I hoped "One Hundred Years " was a cover of the Cure song. It's another interesting blend of atmosphere and aggression. While it's melancholy and not driven by double bass I would not really call it doom. "Forty One Breaths" doesn't really strike me as being compelling as the other songs and is more middle of the road metal.There is an interesting groove that opens the last song. As far as metal goes the drummer is more of a pocket player than trying to bulldoze you with thundering fills. The big chorus makes me think of something Devin Towensend might do in his more melodic excursions. I'll round this one up to a 9 as it has impressed me much more than their previous releases and has a few really outstanding songs, though none are shabby, only one struck me as filler.This is being released on Lifeforce Records.