Dolorian
When All the Laughter Has Gone

Lieve begins descending like snow "Desolated Colours". Slowly and with as much suffering as possible. A black and white world where everything is still and buried. Breathing is difficult... From the debut, Dolorian have their unique and unclassifiable style, with influences of doom, passages and atmospheres typical of black metal, sharp arpeggios, dark atmospheres, ambient keyboards...
In short, an apparently familiar mix for genre lovers, but the mastery is not in the technique or in adhering to stylistic dogmas, there’s a direct transmission of sensations through note combinations that exist in no music manual. There are tempo changes and scream interventions so unpredictable that they fit perfectly! And so, between passages of apparent calm and visions of excruciating pain, the CD flows quickly and swiftly, feeding on phobias, nightmares, anguish, and everything that one could possibly dread... "My weary eyes", made of insistent and solid riffs, moves heedlessly from moments dominated by the corroded voice of the guitarist to very slow arpeggios of incredibly distorted bass. The tempos quickly slow down and often abandon previous structures, only to return to the initial ones, pretending nothing happened. The music is mocking us... "A Part Of Darkness" offers us the very few moments where the keyboards play a truly distinct melody and are heard in the foreground. The strong black metal elements return in this track, which is among the least wearying, as well as one of the most beautiful. The evolution is slow and supported by insistent and intertwined motifs, ensuring no instrument is overshadowed, something that rarely happens in this CD, which prefers moments of prominence, despite the complete absence of solos. The music mocks us, and indeed this is the impression with "When All The Laughter Has Gone". We feel as though we are in the center of an arena, derided by an invisible crowd that can be perfectly heard. Once again, true masters in crafting a motif that evokes derision. And crying that towards the end turns into anger. Then bells and chimes accompany us in the introduction of "Collapsed", another track full of black atmospheres, never abandoning highly detuned arpeggios and moments of apparent silence. Often the instruments fade out one by one only to reappear gradually, allowing each member of this trio to rearrange their structures in different ways. The appearance is that it is very repetitive music; in one sense it is, but on the other, there is the personal reworking of each moment by everyone.
It is minimalist music, it cannot be listened to inattentively or as a background. The surprise comes in "Fields", which delights us with an acoustic guitar interval after 2 minutes of nearly metal-grade tempos and riffs. And never has a minute of acoustic guitar so seamlessly transitioned into riffs with such swagger, as if it were a well-tested and classical structure... The decision is to end with the longest track, rich in passages through the diverse influences of Dolorian.
"With Scorn/Perish", lasting 11 minutes, drags along sluggishly until shifting to a heavier riff with slower tempos, typical of funeral doom, almost to underline a crescendo of pain but a slowdown of mobility... All to deceive with a new passage similar to the initial one, which will lead back to a relentless worsening with minims turning into semibreves and then... breves... The pain leads to the end, to total paralysis. Perish is the final part of the track, seeming like the incessant passage of everything around that doesn’t change because one is paralyzed. Some by fear, others by pain, some by apathy... Nothing changes when you remain still.