Mourning Beloveth
A Murderous Circus

Life is strange. Unpredictable, to say the least. It may be pure rhetoric, but it's also pure truth. So it happens that you are fooling around on the internet, or leafing through the pages of a newspaper, and you find the name of a band that you would never have discovered in other circumstances. This has happened to me often, it also happened with Mourning Beloveth, an Irish band with three albums to their name, which has been masterfully spreading the word of the most uncompromising doom metal since the latter half of the '90s. Even their previous "The Sullen Sulcus" (a splendid album) is part of my collection, but as good as it is, it cannot reach the level of "A Murderous Circus", showing a lack of maturity that, although slight, is only achieved by the new work.

I bought this album. I'll tell the truth: I don't think I could have spent those 17 euros that I had left any better. I admit I was first attracted by the cover: a blonde girl, a dangling cross, a gray background, an apocalyptic setting. Her eyes seem lost in emptiness and at the same time, fixed and determined. Like the band's music, which darkens everything in front of it the moment we press the PLAY button. And it does so by building soft digressions, metric arpeggios, and riffs weighing a ton and a half, slow as a Fiat 500 stuck in a traffic jam on the great ring road at 7:00 in the morning. All with superior musical sensitivity, alternating "calm" moments with guitar structures and melodies that should not be underestimated, certainly not composed by the last newcomer. In short, tremendously doom, yet as far from "boring" as you can get. Crushing, desperate, hellish, and at the same time paradisiacal. 5 songs for 75 minutes of music, a boulder of pain crashing onto the ears (and soul) of the unfortunate listener, photocopying emotions and shredding every hope, in a whirlwind of gray and gloomy notes like not even the sky of London on a rainy Sunday morning.

Darren's deep growls merge with the clean vocals of guitarist Frank, while underneath Tim drums away like a madman, grinding rhythms that closely remind one of the best My Dying Bride, while it's mainly the atmosphere that reigns supreme: melancholy becomes music, nothing more to add. Let's be clear: "A Murderous Circus" is NOT a masterpiece. The fact that I liked it exponentially doesn't mean I'll keep praising it as if it were a revelation, when I know full well that there are many bands capable of making albums like this. It is essentially a record strongly rooted in the most classic stylistic canons of so-called extreme doom metal. Nevertheless, this doesn't take away from the fact that Mourning Beloveth possess not only excellent abilities but also a decent personality that, somehow, manages to make them stand out from the crowd. For this reason, I am proud to have bought this album and still listen to it: because even a small band from a remote Irish village is composed of human beings who experience emotions and suffering and are able to put them into music.

"A Murderous Circus" is pain seen by Mourning Beloveth, honest and sincere, nothing more, nothing less. It will certainly not be a "Turn Loose The Swans" from the Bride nor a "Lead And Aether" from the Skepticism, it is true, but I accept it as it is. Ultimately, nothing indispensable: however, those who love doom metal should engrave the name of this band well in their minds. Because doom is a niche genre, but there are those who know how to do it well, and they might just pass under our noses when we least notice.
DOOM OR BE DOOMED!