Yearning
Merging Into Landscapes

Showers of light rain, an acoustic guitar arpeggio that builds in intensity to describe a delicate lullaby in the nighttime atmosphere of the world. Then a kaleidoscopic, soft, piercing riff...

The notes that open the latest work (2007) of the Finnish doom band are muffled. "Merging into Landscapes" is the fifth album of the band, perhaps destined to be the last given the death in July of this year of leader Juhani Palomaki, who in recent times was left alone, so much so that the Yearning project seemed to have become a one-man band.

"Merging into Landscapes" fits into that subgenre of doom that doesn't play too much on emotions: the sound of Yearning is quite direct with the guitar work never becoming intrusive. Additionally, orchestrations much loved by bands like My Dying Bride or Shape of Despair are relegated to a more marginal role and peek through here and there as a sonic complement to the track in which they are used.

However, what is considered the winning feature of the album is its lightness: eleven tracks amounting to about 46 minutes is rare in the doom scene, as is finding compositions that manage to be both poignant and aggressive without ever becoming banal, despite somewhat lacking songwriting (perhaps the only real major flaw of the record).

This is why a song like "Kaleidoscopic Inscape" does not feel heavy at all; rather it slips well into the listener's soul, who immediately understands that "Merging into Landscapes" does not wish to dwell too much on the existential side of doom metal. "Sphere Of Disgust" resembles a dark mantra in which Palomaki's voice effortlessly shifts from a suffering clean vocal to growl (a characteristic that recurs throughout the duration of the platter).

I think talking about the other tracks would be superfluous and, moreover, would reveal too much about the record itself. However, the emotional charge that this album carries is certainly not (as in most doom works) a negative force of despair. "Merging into Landscapes" goes straight to the heart of things without frills: it does so with musical lightness, an alternation of clean and growl vocals, reflective parts, and more aggressive ones, always in a continuous balance that does not let one factor prevail over the other.

Recommended.

1. "Prologue: Nascentes Morimur" (00:55)
2. "Kaleidoscopic Inscape" (8:29)
3. "Sphere Of Disgust" (4:32)
4. "Return" (3:47)
5. "Datura Stramonium" (1:57)
6. "October Rain" (4:58)
7. "Lethean Waters" (3:25)
8. "Merging Into Landscapes" (5:45)
9. "Dead" (3:32)
10. "The Dying Morn" (6:33)
11. "Epilogue: Nemo Ante Mortem Beatus" (2:39)