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Unmercenaries - Fallen In Disbelief,
2014 CD Album Limited Edition Numbered MFL-Records, Frozen Light - MFL-010, FZL 018 Doomification of the zerrest! The heavy darkness in this release revives the corpse of 90s doom death. The slow crushing of early My Dying Bride or Winter with gothic keyboards and the modern bulldozing of early Temple Of Void make this release a classic prototype of a sonic death death experience. The production is heavy and corrosive, and the pace is of an elephant-drawn hearse. This is black magic inside a bottomless pit of tar. An absolute must for the triplazering doomonaut! Remove brackets and unzip: [doom til zer] !ZER Unmercenaries ZER! |
Ep. 2484 Gene Epstein: Good Economy or Bad?
4 hours ago
Unmercenaries' full-length debut adds plenty of interest to its Funeral Doom palette.
ReplyDeleteThis is another quality release by MFL records: Unmercenaries are three members strong, and they offer up four songs of Funeral/Death Doom gloom. This album came out in 2014 and the three members are all experienced musicians, who have been part of bands such as Decay of Reality, Who Dies in Siberian Slush and My Shameful - to name a few. The countries of origin for this musical box of mysteries are Russia and Germany.
Well, what presents itself in 'Fallen in Disbelief' is a pretty great and solid album. Lead guitars are really put together well, and the tempo changes are superb throughout the journey ahead. The feel you get is plain dark heavy Doom at its finest; with Sludgy sounds in some parts, but mainly thick guitars carry the weight of the four songs.
The bass and drums fit perfectly, with the bass not hidden and having its own freedom of spirit to roam and stand out. All guitars and bass were recorded by Gungrind, while the ever present thundering drums are provided by Jürgen Fröhling.
The vocals by E.S are deep, guttural, and just monstrous. The way they flow over the riffs is sometime hypnotic. Daniel Neagoe from Eye Of Solitude also does guest vocals on 'Circles Of Disbelief'. Pads and various elements only add to the building of certain parts of the songs. It's a joy to listen to. Even some of the guitar has a Black metal feel on some of the fast melodies.
Musically, it reminds me of Thergothon and Evoken - which is not bad at all! Piano and acoustic guitars give a really mournful feel to the overall impression of the album. I'm feeling pretty depressed after the last song 'A Beggars Lesson' finishes. It's over 15 minutes of swaying rhythms that leave you wanting more. A really sombre story could be told over these end parts. Almost Folk in sound, I love this - it's just so different and bleak.
What I enjoyed most is the building up and tempo changing throughout each song. It really feels like you're going somewhere, but may never actually reach the destination. It's not a normal Doom album, as I feel it has some great moments that are very different in expression and feel. I can't completely put my finger on it, but it seems very different to the usual Funeral stuff that's out there at the moment.
If you enjoy despair and an air of hopelessness, then this is a must for any darkened soul.
Unmercenaries are a collaborative of two members from Who Dies In Siberian Slush (amongst others, but I do refer to this one specifically, for I recently wrote a review for their split with My Shameful; see update December 24th 2015), and a member from My Shameful (amongst others, but I do refer to this one specifically, for I recently wrote a review for their split with Who Dies In Siberian Slush; see update December 24th 2015). Indeed, Russian guys Gungrind (bass guitars and electric guitars) and E.S. (vocals), and German drummer Jürgen Fröhling are no strangers to each other anymore, but Unmercenaries is their first actual collaboration. Everything was written by Gungrind, and recorded at the Primordial Studio for what concerns the Russian part, and at the Germany-based SG Records Studio for the drum parts.
ReplyDeleteFallen In Disbelief is the project’s first (and till now the sole) effort, consisting of four lengthy compositions. It was released in an edition of 500 copies in a co-operation in between two excellent Russian labels, Frozen Light and MFL aka Moscow Funeral League.
The album stands for a rather primal and basic form of Funeral Doom / Doom-Death, including quite some keyboard lines. But the other elements are quite ‘evident’: slowly pounding rhythms, esoteric melodies, grimy grunts and a couple of whispers (though, there are some scarifying blackened screams involved as well), traditional breaks (say hello to the early nineties), injections with acoustic guitars and piano, and so on. This does not seem to be so attractive, this description, I knows, but guess what… Since the result is simply fabulous, I feel like obliged to go deeper into the essence, and that’s quite impressive. Unmercenaries indeed aren’t the most renewing or original formation ever, but what they create is more than one might expect. Imagine the scenes à la the nineties from Finland, Sweden, the U.K., Holland, Russia, Belgium, Greece, Germany, Italy and, for my concern, Brunei and Guam, in order to have a certain idea of this project’s approach. Keyboard lines and tremolo leads are quite important, and so are the vocal parts (no matter if it deals with the -leading- grunts or the present screams), the massive, hammering rhythm section, and the hypnotic leads. But do not ignore that grandiose sound quality either, for this one is just majestic, at least for this kind of Sonic Satisfaction.