Funeral
From These Wounds

This is not a simple album to review but a long adventure, intense, heart-wrenching, and often melancholic, that explores the mind and thoughts of a man who is about to face death as if he has awaited it all his life. He sees it as a liberation from everyday life, common problems, the lies we are told to make it seem like everything is fine, but in reality, it absolutely isn’t.

"The human race imprisoned to its end"!

I must admit that before listening to this album, I had no idea what "Funeral Doom Metal" meant... Now I know! It's a fantastic genre, expressing concepts and ideas that are entirely different from the rest of Metal music (I mean the nonsensical lyrics of commercial bands, writing nonsense and dressing flamboyantly just to attract people and sell records... I know, it's a flaw of mine, but I can't help it, I can't stand them!).

Perhaps in an overly melodramatic context, it manages to transform the thoughts of the four Norwegians into art: into melodious and sweet sounds, which become raw and hard when they need to trap the listener in a cage with no way out, where they tear at their problems and urge them to rebel, to not accept all this.

The vocals of good Frode Frismo are not the typical funeral atmospheric growl, but are clean, and this novelty conveys emotions even more intense and sincere than those that could be delivered by a hoarse and emotionless voice. (I'm limiting myself to doom; naturally, in other genres, growl is fundamental to the music and makes it beautiful).

The songs are around 9 minutes each and are never banal or tiring; instead, all 7 manage to accompany you throughout the journey, leaving you satisfied and serene by the end.

This album changes your life: for better or worse! Surely it shouldn't lead to suicide, but should only make one think about the world we live in and that doesn't entirely satisfy us.

As for the songs, those with the most creative and poetic vein are mainly 3: the title track, The Architecture of Loss, and Pendulum. They feature powerful riffs that give aggression to the song, but also keyboard backgrounds that create a dark and gloomy atmosphere, let's say an aura of mystery, turning them into high expressions of realistic and convoluted human thought reflection.

I hope I have described this album in the best way and that it leads you to love this genre. Naturally, this is not an album to listen to for distraction, but to absorb its confutative power you need to dedicate considerable time to fully understand it: that is up to you!

The track-by-track review I usually do for this CD didn't seem appropriate as what I had to review wasn't the drum rolls, the solos, or the singer's high notes, but the concept of the album.

Peace to you Brothers!