Evoken
A Caress of the Void

Yet another reinterpretation, following exceptional episodes (read Mournful Congregation, Thergothon, Saturnus) of Doom Metal in a Funeral style.

That's saying something, considering the genre's not-so-welcoming characteristics: distorted guitars, relentless on the same wavelength for long minutes, seeming to expand and create spaces in which an oppressive voice inserts itself with its power, its depth, in its now complete lack of the spark of joy that characterizes the transitions to Doom of more properly Death or Black artists (Katatonia, Novembre, Agalloch); melodic flashes whose task is not at all to break the tension created by the monumental heavy lines, but to infuse a sadness that easily borders on depression, to suck away all joy and energy, rendering listeners immobile, as if paralyzed, who still can't help but remain listening, as if bitten by the terrifying and exhilarating teeth of a vampire.

But the Funeral extremization by the Americans Evoken seems to emerge directly from an infernal cauldron, where unbelief, nihilism (understood in the most proper sense of the term, meaning an almost total lack of values and objectives, a total emptiness in the very essence of life, as the title already seems to suggest), coldness, anguish, a pinch or two of madness, and so on are mixed in various and not always easily definable proportions.

Far from the expressive (or impressive) extremisms of Xasthur, Leviathan, or Nortt, the lines intertwine without ever losing sight of the arabesque from which they attempt to draw roads, whirlwinds, hidden senses or perhaps just never found ones: if the opener (the same title track) aims to hypnotize the listener by introducing them to the gray and suffocating world of the Funereal through its massive and granite atmosphere, whose 9 minutes seem to flow distorting temporal coordinates, "Mare Erythraeum" imparts the sensations described above through an Agalloch-like progression, with few words in a scant melodic line - this time far from extreme -, whose ultimate goal is to communicate numbness, caused by a vague and almost irritating sense of senselessness.

The dirtier section of the album starts with "Of Purest Absolution", where the rhythms dictated by the drums soon strengthen that almost telepathic transmission of unhealthy cemetery sentiment. In fact, there seems to be a vague excess of drums, which in the first minutes brings the track closer to Death; but the concise melodic break (four clear and cold notes) prolonged for almost a minute and a half prepares for the climax, a very slow progression of the same, more complex sequence, that chills by immersing into that void, where caresses truly send shivers... The growl inserts itself even slower, more spasmodic, quickly slipping into a new Death-Anguish union, made colder and sadder by the new element, leading to some harsh Black cues, more than worthy of note. The Darkthrone-like final sequence instead returns to the genre's more typical characteristics that monsters like Mayhem, Katatonia, Catacomb embodied.

It falls to "Astray In Eternal Night", a true anthem of the genre: another monumental fresco of over 8 and a half minutes, where melodic gurgling that seems almost to retrace the deliberately atone notes of a bell alternates for a minute and a half with whispered growling at times; it continues with the now well-known slow and extenuating cadence, enriched and embellished by deep passages, creating hypnotic, descending scales, and anxious, ascending ones. Noteworthy also is the final climax, which recalls the initial "bell", albeit hiding it in a new structure that adds a bit more anxiety.

Pain turns red and almost palpable in "Descend The Lifeless Womb", a marathon along a linear riff that unleashes blood, dotted with slowdowns and screams making it all an unbearable solution of acid in hatred, cold in anguish, a true abortion of life. Although not rich in theme variations, the piece should certainly be counted among the pearls of both Funeral Doom and Death.

It opens with yet another pseudo-melodic insert in "Suffer A Martyr's Trial Procession At Dusk", an infinite theory of saints no longer such, where John Paradiso's lament desecrates the totality of Being, up to the classical dripping of final overlapping notes constructing a penetrating yet delicate support structure that cannot but leave breathless, drowning in an icy sea - a cold almost material, certainly perennial - of anguish, loss, defeat, impotence.

Closes with "Orogeny", a synthesis of some of the best cues of the album: overall, a quite "confusing" piece, not particularly characteristic, letting us admire one last, "short" (6 minutes) time, acidic and caustic screams, roaring but almost slow-motion growls, riffs, if not heartbreaking, at least relevant; not following a precise line this time makes the whole even more intolerable, an overwhelming incendiary mixture that cannot (or does not want to) dispel the darkness.