Got a question for you all: when’s the last time an album just absolutely, from out of nowhere, blindsided you and kept you enthralled for the entirety of its length on the first play? I don’t mean from your favorite bands (though that’s pretty damn cool, too), but from a completely out-of-left-field pick in the promo sump?1 Georgian funeral directors Ennui have been toughing it out with their craft since 2012’s Mze Ukunisa, with the then-duo working with what they had available. Now, the duo is a full-fledged band, and on their fifth album, Qroba, they hit graveyard paydirt.

From the very first moment the keyboards swell in opener “Antinatalism,” you know you’re in for some fun(erally dismal) times. Creeping at the pace of a drugged-out snail in the Antarctic region, “Antinatalism” brilliantly glistens while also dragging you through the icy snow with its crashing (and crushing) riffs and methodical drumming. When founder David Unsaved growls, it’s with the force of the bear from Annihilation after freshly devouring Daniel Neagoe (Eye of Solitude and a fuckton of other bands), further throwing the listener into a pit of existential despair and woe. Most impressively, at over 10 minutes, the time flies by effortlessly, due to its ability to draw you in and keep you enthralled for the entire length.

The other four songs on this 62-minute behemoth hold up pretty damn well themselves. The album centerpiece “Decima,” which features mournful melodies from a panduri (three-stringed lute) that accentuate the sorrow midway into the song, giving the album even more breathing room to expand and envelop you in its snare. “Becoming Void” sounds like Canto III on steroids, picking a fight with Turn Loose the Swans-era My Dying Bride for lunch money, and again feels like a six-minute song at over 15 minutes due to how well-crafted it is. None of the songs overstay their welcome, but they still feel like soulful journeys to a mournful end.

Produced by Greg Chandler (Esoteric), Qroba does an amazing job of giving breathing space while also smothering the listener. The drums feel cavernous and monstrous, plodding with intent. The scant few leads2 amplify the dour vibes a thousandfold, making damn sure there’s no light escaping this realm. If there was a nitpick to be had, this is the epitome of mood music. You’re not going to grab this on a warm, sunny day out in the sun with some lemonade and a book to read.3 Qroba is solemn, reflective music if there ever was some.

And this fits in quite well with other solemn, reflection-time music from the likes of Skepticism and Shape of Despair. Qroba came at a time when I didn’t know I needed it, with all the chaos going on around the world as well as in my own circle, but I’m glad it did, as this has been playing non-stop since I first laid ears upon it. If you’ve never taken to funeral doom ever, Ennui won’t change your mind, as this is sorrow personified and exponentially amplified. However, if you need a severe purging, welcome to your new favorite band.

Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 319 kbps mp3
Label: Meuse Music Records
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: February 27th, 2026

Clouds – Desprins [Things You Might Have Missed 2025]

By Thus Spoke

Those of you who have been paying close attention may remember that Clouds’ 2021 album Despǎrțire was the subject of my very first review here at AMG; a review that in my n00bish naïveté, I appended with a 4.5. I don’t regret it, but will admit the name Clouds had faded a little in my mind before a sudden and apparently unannounced drop of Desprins back in January caused all the sweet sadness to come flooding back. The distinctive shroud of flute-accented darkness fell instantly. At once I was transported back to that November evening I first listened to Clouds, gazing out of the train window at the blackness beyond.

Desprins is transportive not simply as a continuation of Clouds’ endless journey of despair, but as an extension of it. Heavier and simultaneously more reflective than Despǎrțire, it channels the group’s black, choked funeral doom through a spacious synth veil recalling their earliest material, but now more confidently and atmospherically woven. The duality between the heaviest and gentlest aspects—a tension Clouds have always experimented with—is sharpened. The grittiness of the metal, the plaintiveness of the singing, and airiness of the acoustic instruments are more stark, but in a way that balances the musical and emotional waves of tension and release. In a limbo of atmosphere, Daniel Neagoe tells us in solemn whispers what he elsewhere expresses with pained cries and guttural roars; heavy riffs lift and drums slip away at bar’s end for a piano to take the lead; quiet softly crescendoes back on the ascent of a flute: all flow and fade inevitably out of each other.

One could argue that the congruence of Desprins’ apparently disparate musical elements owes its existence to how straightforwardly, heartbreakingly beautiful the melodies thus forged are. Whether first announced by a flute (“Disguise”), a piano (“Unanswered”), synth (“Life Becomes Lifeless”) or a guitar (“Chain Me,” “Chasing Ghosts”), all players pull on the thread of the theme before long. The chasms that come from marrying guitar chords with flute (“Life Becomes Lifeless,” “Forge Another Nightmare”), and opening out to stripped-back synth and apathetic cleans, when you can hear every touch on the keys and feel the impact of every drumbeat, are profound musically and emotionally. These are the kinds of passages designed for wistful staring into the middle distance, whose pathos is so acute, it’s almost unfair. “Life Becomes Lifeless,” “Chain Me,” and the finale of “Chasing Ghosts” are especially potent. With a seemingly more sparse soundscape, they achieve what Shape of Despair do with a more grandiose one. I am, admittedly, a crybaby, but Clouds’ ability to bring me to tears in a more melancholic frame of mind is something I hold in high esteem.

Perhaps more so than before, Clouds’ latest incarnation is something that either really works for you or really doesn’t. I’m obviously in the former camp. Like other funeral doom acts, and analogously dolorous music, the portal of sadness they create is effective only insofar as it can pull its listener in. Desprins sees a doubling-down on everything that might make Clouds hard to listen to—the misery, the polarity between the crushing and uplifting—but its execution only makes this project more unique and more uniquely captivating.

Tracks to Check Out: ”Disguise,” “Life Becomes Lifeless,” “Forge Another Nightmare,” “Chasing Ghosts.”

#2025 #Clouds #DeathDoom #Desprins #Doom #DoomDeath #FuneralDoom #RomanianMetal #ShapeOfDespair #ThingsYouMightHaveMissed #ThingsYouMightHaveMissed2025

Falling Leaves – The Silence That Binds Us Review

By Twelve

Doom metal and I have not been getting along much lately. I’ve noticed this in recent years—the slow, the sad, the funereal, it just doesn’t have the impact it used to. Even the stuff I used to love has fallen by the wayside a bit. But something about Dubai’s (originally Amman) Falling Leaves has compelled me to dust off my hat and give it another shot. Maybe it’s the gorgeous cover art. Maybe it’s the fact that The Silence That Binds Us is only Falling Leaves’s sophomore full-length, despite having been around since 2009, with their debut released in 2012. Thirteen years is a long time between albums, but few genres benefit from long, careful consideration like doom metal. Suffice to say, I came into this assignment with high expectations—and walked away with new love for the genre.

Strictly speaking, though, Falling Leaves are probably closer to the “doom/death” category than simply doom metal, because their music is so energetic. Still, it is mournful, blending thematic elements from Altars of Grief and Shape of Despair. It includes guest vocals from Paul Kuhr of November’s Doom, which is another likely influence. The pacing for The Silence That Binds Us ranges from the lively (“The Angel on My Shoulder”) to the dismal (“The Everlasting Wounds”), but while the music often feels powerful, it never loses its woeful overtures (Fabio Alessandrini walks a tightrope on drums, but does an exceptional job). Bashar Haroun and Kuhr’s vocal talents are mighty: there is plaintive singing, impassioned roaring, and more narration than I usually care for in my metal, but Falling Leaves pulls it off—often, the sudden clarity on the touching lyrics is welcome and Haroun has a gravitas to his delivery that suits it well. In all, The Silence That Binds Us has a lot going for it, a strong foundation to build some strong songs on.

Fortunately, Falling Leaves can write strong songs. Opener “Carvings” is some of the best death/doom I’ve heard in a long time; its chorus in particular towers over the listener with aching melancholy. Ariel Perchuk’s (Liliumdust) keys do some serious lifting—I could go on for the entire review about well-placed, sweeping keyboard work—but here it’s a simple piano melody that lifts the chorus from something great to something amazing (a similar effect appears in “We Are Alone”). On “Ashes of My Mind,” a heavy, devastating piece that greatly highlights Ala’a Swalha and Fadi Stanboulieh’s talents on guitar, it is Perchuk’s ever-present piano that keeps the music grounded in doom territories, contrasting pained tremolos and heavy riffs that complement baleful roars. Swalha and Stanboulieh’s seamless transitions from hard-hitting riffs to soft notes to weeping tremolos allow Falling Leaves to write with variety, and no two songs on The Silence That Binds Us feel overly similar.

All of this would be for naught—or, at least, for less—if The Silence That Binds Us didn’t sound good, but Falling Leaves has that base covered too. Dan Swanö’s master brings his trademark clarity to every moment. As is perhaps typical for this style of music, Ali M.’s bass is very much a background player, but listen to the stirring pre-chorus of “Carvings” and you can hear it driving the tension. This is a rare moment where the bass gets to shine, but its contribution is exactly what it needs to be. Really, my only issue with The Silence That Binds Us is its pacing. With only one song shorter than six minutes, it feels a touch overlong at fifty-one minutes. If I were to continue nitpicking, I’d say “Shattered Hopes” has such a strong “closer” feel to it that I feel like the songs that follow it meander a touch. That’s not a knock on the songs themselves, mind—just a statement on how much I love “Shattered Hopes.”

Falling Leaves are reigniting my passion for an entire subgenre. You can hear the amount of work that’s gone into The Silence That Binds Us. If it’s not actually thirteen years of painstaking writing and planning, then it sure sounds like it anyway. The songwriting is stellar, the performances are great, and it sounds amazing. Minor issues with pacing aside, I really can’t find much fault here. If you read this, Falling Leaves, please don’t make me wait a decade for the next one! Your music is much too good to keep quiet.

Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 10 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Meuse Music Records
Website: fallingleaves.bandcamp.com
Releases Worldwide: September 5th, 2025

#2025 #40 #AltarsOfGrief #DeathMetal #DoomMetal #FallingLeaves #Liliumdust #MelodicDeathMetal #MeuseMusicRecords #NovembersDoom #Review #Reviews #Sep25 #ShapeOfDespair #TheSilenceThatBindsUs #UnitedArabEmiratesMetal

God’s Funeral – El Despertar Dels Morts Review

By Angry Metal Guy

Written By: Nameless_n00b_605

Metal is full of niche genres, and within that sphere, doom metal is full of unique variations. Funeral doom, doom metal’s basement-dwelling offspring, is as impenetrable a metal genre as some of the nastiest bands in the business. Trudging, droning song structures, distorted, bellowing vocals, and (as the genre tag suggests) the vibe of being at a funeral can make for a taxing listen on a good day. Nailing all these individual elements isn’t so much a challenge as a rite of passage, but truly meshing these staples together is a skill few bands possess. God’s Funeral joins the cacophonic dirge on their first LP, El Despertar Dels Morts. Hailing from Tarragona, Spain, can their brand of Catholic-guilt-infused funeral doom make a splash in the cesspool of sadness, or is it merely a teardrop in the bucket of filth?

El Despertar Dels Morts has all the hallmarks of great funeral doom; roomy production offers space for naturalistic string arrangements and atmospheric organ playing. Lead singer Abel nails the classic funeral doom tone, with vocals that sound like they are recorded in the roomy basement of a moldy castle. The riffing from guitarists Naila and Juan is suitably churning and ominous, and Sergi’s drumming fills the deliberate void with hard-hitting playing. The kicker is that God’s Funeral nails production and musicianship, but misses the mark on nearly every level otherwise. From songwriting to editing, and from pacing to variety, El Despertar Dels Morts fumbles at every turn. In a five-track album spanning nearly fifty minutes, it is a struggle to find standout moments in a sea of nearly identical song structures, played-out riffs, and tedious vocals.

Where God’s Funeral bucks trends is in the most unfortunate places. Genre stalwarts like Ahab, DOOM:VS, and Shape of Despair feature similarly deliberate song structures, but break these up with vocal variety, melodic sections, left turns into death metal, and more. God’s Funeral eschews all of that, and the only notable moments of reprieve from the grinding, one-note style on El Despertar Dels Morts are the wonderfully rich-sounding string work that are a staple across the album, an epic organ section at the end of “Ara Que Torna El Silenci,” and the militaristic marching drum intro to “La Processó De Les Ombres.” It is telling that you have to reach for points of interest on this LP; they act like life rafts in a never-ending storm of monotony.

The back half of El Despertar Dels Morts is the strongest part of the album, if only for the fact that the songs stay under ten minutes. These last three tracks at least offer a glimpse at what God’s Funeral could be capable of with a lot more editing. “Fossa Comuna” is the standout track that exemplifies the best of what the band can do. An atmospheric bass intro leads to an actual beat that surpasses the downright sleep-inducing tempo of previous tracks, and the drumming sounds alive for once, finally helping a track rise above the sub-50 bpm droning that drags across the entire LP. While having an album that sounds similar throughout isn’t necessarily a negative, especially when that one song is a ripper, God’s Funeral missed the memo. Telling apart individual tracks on El Despertar Dels Morts is downright challenging. It pains me to be so negative about a band that is invested in their craft and obvious worshippers at the doom altar. God’s Funeral is so close on many levels, but it leans into genre tropes so intensely that they become repellent.

El Despertar Dels Morts is, finally, a monotonous listen that feels more like prepping for bed as opposed to reveling in the big sleep. Funeral doom is slow, it is atmospheric, it is crushing, and God’s Funeral does an admirable job attempting to turn these elements into a cohesive album. But the band draws from the same well too often, leaving El Despertar Dels Morts stylistically empty. In a genre that is already difficult to break into as a band and a listener, God’s Funeral has all the makings of a great addition to the pantheon, but it fails in the most fundamental elements. The band can play well, and the album sounds great from a production standpoint, but the most important part, the songwriting, sags at every turn. Fans of funeral doom may find some choice moments or good background listening with El Despertar Dels Morts, but unless you love the genre, this album won’t change any hearts.

Rating: 2.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Meuse Music Records
Websites: godsfuneral.bandcamp.com | instagram.com/godsfuneral.band
Releases Worldwide: August 15th, 2025

#2025 #Ahab #Aug25 #DoomMetal #DoomVS #ElDespertarDelsMorts #FuneralDoom #GodSFuneral #MeuseMusicRecords #Review #Reviews #ShapeOfDespair #SpanishMetal

🖤 ROUND I - Phase 1 - match 42/50

Which one is the best doom metal album?

🤘 Shape of Despair, Angels of Distress, (2001)
or
🤘 Black Sabbath, Master of Reality, (1971)

➡️See pinned post on profile for the tournament rules

 Please 𝗕𝗢𝗢𝗦𝗧

🎧 YOU ARE STRONGLY ENCOURAGED TO GIVES EACH ALBUM A FRESH LISTEN BEFORE VOTING

#KingusMusicTournaments #MusicTournament #Doom #DoomMetal #KMTPoll #Music #ShapeOfDespair #BlackSabbath

🖤 ROUND I - Phase 1 - match 12/50

Which one is the best doom metal album?

🤘 Shape of Despair, Illusion’s Play, (2004)
or
🤘 YOB, The Illusion of Motion, (2004)

➡️See pinned post on profile for the tournament rules

 Please 𝗕𝗢𝗢𝗦𝗧

🎧 YOU ARE STRONGLY ENCOURAGED TO GIVES EACH ALBUM A FRESH LISTEN BEFORE VOTING

#KingusMusicTournaments #MusicTournament #Doom #DoomMetal #KMTPoll #Music #ShapeOfDespair #YOB

Inborn Suffering – Pale Grey Monochrome

By Doom_et_Al

As a picky young tot, my favorite meal was “Mount Mashed Potato.” Ostensibly an uninspired lump of mash on the outside, probing with a spoon soon revealed surprising chambers of peas, hidden anterooms of carrots, and lurking chasms of warm gravy, which bubbled over when released from their confinement. Tiny Doom was delighted, and more importantly, it made a meal that I would ordinarily have considered fairly bland into something exciting and tasty. It also taught me that sometimes, solid ingredients and well-prepared food aren’t enough for the fussy; you need excitement and unpredictability. So how does this all relate to a doom metal band circa 2025?

Inborn Suffering are a French outfit who have been knocking around since 2002. Like the author Donna Tartt, they release an album every decade and then go quiet. Their latest, Pale Grey Monochrome follows 2006’s Wordless Hope and 2012’s Regression to Nothingness. For those unfamiliar with obscure French doom, Inborn Suffering play a form of mournful, melodic, sadboi metal that straddles the line between doom and funeral doom. Think Second to Sun, or Shape of Despair after a Red Bull. Pale Grey Monochrome sticks to the recipe, offering up nearly an hour of gorgeous, melodic death doom to complement the dog days of the Northern Hemisphere Winter. Yet in sticking to the tried-and-tested so resolutely, excitement and originality have been lost.

The biggest issue with Pale Grey Monochrome is that, while the ingredients are solid, and the preparation absolutely fine, there isn’t much that is surprising or unique about the material. Considering how absolutely bonkers and avant-garde some French metal bands are, this is surprising. Inborn Suffering keep things entirely safe for the entire album. “From Lowering Tides” shimmers and shines with gorgeous melodies… that don’t go anywhere unpredictable. The chords rise and fall like the tides, and the pacing of the song is logical, but nothing truly stands out. This pattern is repeated throughout Pale Grey Monochrome. The title track plods along in a very listenable fashion, but lacks the hooks to embed itself into the heart.

Some readers might be thinking, “But this is how funeral melodic doom works. One doesn’t expect fireworks and dramatic changes. The music is, by definition, ponderous and slow.” And that would be fair. But the best melodic death-doom bands find some way to differentiate themselves, whether it’s through experimentation (Atramentum, Esoteric), sheer melodicism (Shape of Despair), or epic vision and scope (Bell Witch). Inborn Suffering, unfortunately, lacks anything that sets it apart. This is a pity because, in addition to the spelling of the album, there is much that the band absolutely nails. The aesthetic is spot-on: from the opening chords of “Wounding,” the material sounds sad but inviting at the same time. It’s like putting on a warm cloak in a snowstorm. Inborn Suffering also have an innate sense of pacing, and the songs all flow and coalesce logically and meaningfully. When the highs hit (The climax of “Tales From an Empty Shell,” the dissonant middle section of “The Oak”), they feel earned. Listening to Pale Grey Monochrome is never a chore, helped by a generous mix that allows the material to breathe, and the hour passes easily. It’s a testament when so much of funeral doom feels like a drag.

Pale Grey Monochrome is a very solid album with much to admire but very little to set it apart. Your enjoyment of it will vary depending on how much you value originality and surprise. In other words, Inborn Suffering have offered a hearty meal, with good quality ingredients. But this is plain ole mash and ‘taters, like you’ve had a hundred times before. If the band chooses not to wait another decade for the next album, I can provide them with a blueprint of what to do next in the form of mum’s “Mount Mashed Potato.”

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 14 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Ardua Music
Websites: inbornsuffering.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/inbornsufferingdoom/
Releases Worldwide: February 7th, 2025

#2025 #30 #ArduaMusic #BellWitch #DoomMetal #Feb25 #FrenchMetal #FuneralDoomMetal #InbornSuffering #Review #Reviews #SecondToSun #ShapeOfDespair

My other submission for today's #SlowSunday:

Calliophis: Trepak

https://song.link/hvp0jwvbsdrkt

#DeathMetal #DoomMetal

FFO #ShapeOfDespair #Sorrowful #SuperStatic

Counting Hours – The Wishing Tomb Review

By Steel Druhm

Tears freezing in the cutting winter winds. Life’s blood staining the freshly fallen snow. These are the things that bring Steel to the graveyard. Naturally, I love my sadboi doom as well, and the long-defunct Finnish act Rapture in particular. Their style of highly melancholic melodoom resonated deeply in my cold dead chest cavity, and though they’ve been gone since 2005 I still go back to those albums regularly. When the two guitarists of Rapture reunited to form Counting Hours and dropped the excellent debut The Will back in 2019, I was ecstatic. It was as close to getting new Rapture material as we were ever going to get and they hit all the same grim feelz as they fused the early days of Katatonia with Dawn of Solace into a cold grave of an album. Now a few years later we get the eagerly anticipated follow-up, The Wishing Tomb. Can this melodoom super group deliver the same volume of sadness, despair, and depression to my doorstep and bid me enjoy of deep sorrow? Let us pray.

After a highly effective mood-setting instrumental opener that manages to wring some emotion from you, things kick off in truly grand fashion with “Timeless Ones.” This is Grade A Finnish sad doom at its weepy best, done by folks from Rapture and Shape of Despair, so they know exactly what they’re doing. It’s heavy at its core and overflowing with weepy, mournful guitarwork designed to pluck your heartstrings in that “dead puppy in the snow” kind of way. It swings between the works of Tuomos Saukkonen (Black Sun Aeon / Dawn of Solace) and Brave Murder Day Katatonia, with the Rapture influence never completely out of sight. The chorus is spun gold and the whole thing is poignant and captivating. A big part of that is due to the stellar vocals of Ilpo Paasela who excels at both death roars and clean, plaintive singing. I especially love the downtrodden riffage as Paasela intones somberly intones, “I saw the trail of stars….” The quality sads keep flowing on “Away I Flow” which smacks strongly of Deathwhite in the guitarwork and Dawn of Solace in the vocals, which is a lethal combination imparting powerful magic to the basic doom formula. Another major high point arrives with “All That Blooms (Needs to Die)” which is especially loaded with forlorn trilling and a hefty Fall of the Leafe vibe.

The Wishing Tomb offers so many great examples of gloomy Finn-core, that naming all of them would make my review unwieldy. I must however mention the brilliance of “No Closure” where the Rapture spirit is especially strong and Paasela delivers his best vocal work. The equally impactful “A Mercy Fall” must also be given its due for being so damn catchy despite its downtrodden delivery. There are a few minor stumbles though too. The title track is a good song with plenty of depressive atmosphere, but it’s overlong at over 7 minutes and its dreamy, sleepy drift lacks the punch of the album’s best cuts. The 7-minute closer “The Well of Failures” is much better and has truly monumental moments, but it could stand a bit of judicious trimming. These are very small complaints about an amazing, however. The 48-plus minute runtime doesn’t feel too vast and the album flows well. It’s a grim joy and one I can’t seem to stop getting lost in.

Rapture alumni Jarno Salomaa and Tomi Ullgrén walk a delicate line between recreating their old band’s sound and doing something new. They excel at melacholic leads and harmonies but don’t forget to bring the metal hammer down regularly with weight doom riffs and heavy chugga-luggery. They’ve crafted some beautiful moments here and every song has at least one that will bring an iron tear to your feeble eyes. Ilpo Paasela was a revelation on the debut and he’s even better here. His clean singing is much like Tuomas Tuominen (ex-Fall of the Leafe, ex-The Man-Eating Trees) and the anonymous singer of Deathwhite, and he sells the material perfectly, sounding heartbroken and inconsolable. His death roars are powerful as well, bringing the full weight of grief to the funerary music. This is a band that knows their chosen genre inside and out and crafts fresh-sounding killers from a well-worn template.

As much as I adore The Will, The Wishing Tomb is clearly the superior work. Counting Hours have the perfect formula and know exactly how to get to the heart of Steel. This will undoubtedly be one of the top albums of 2024 and right now it’s hard to imagine it not ending up in the top spot. I’m happy to be wrong though, because whatever tops this heartbreaking work of staggering genius will be something completely out of this world. Get this in your ears immediately and get sad.

Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Ardua Music
Websites: countinghours2.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/countinghoursfinland
Releases Worldwide: February 23rd, 2024

#2024 #40 #ArduaMusic #BraveMurderDay #CountingHours #DawnOfSolace #DeathMetal #Deathwhite #DoomMetal #FallOfTheLeafe #Feb24 #FinnishMetal #Katatonia #Rapture #Review #Reviews #ShapeOfDespair #TheWill #TheWishingTomb