O Sol Fulmina a Terra

When thinking about the metal scene in Brazil, I think funeral doom is the last thing I expect to come from that country for some reason. Maybe that's caused by me rarely think about funeral doom in the first place because it's a genre I don't listen to very often. Most of the time the ultra-slow and long songs leave me in absolute boredom and yet I'm sitting here sharing my thoughts on a blackened funeral doom trio from Sao Paolo, namely Abske Fides and their latest album "O Sol Fulmina a Terra" that was released in 2016.

I'm not gonna lie, this is quite the interesting album. It's combining slow and heavy funeral doom with some blackened riffs and a distinct stoner/psychedelic undertone that sounds a little like Elysian Blaze without the dominant synths. Instead the keyboards only provide some choral elements and a few hints of ambience in the far back of the sound to fill the gaps and make it sound thicker. The focus however lies on everything else. Slow, pounding drums with next to no changes in rhythm are constantly providing basic percussions with only a few twists to mix things up and the bass is following their path pretty nicely. The riffs on the other hand are surprisingly varied and far from the constant one-note drone-ing I expected. Instead there's a lot of things going on here. Sure, they tend to be really slow and heavy, but they also manage to evoke a psychedelic/stoner vibe, are throwing in some soft post-rock-ish wandering segments in "Imóveis Ares", flesh out some interesting solos on the lead guitar or morph into grim and dark black/doom riffs that even enhance the speed a slight bit. There's a slight bit of ultra-heavy one-note-every-10-second segments, but they are quite rare and help increase the impact and suction of their music whenever they occur. There's also a pretty dense fog of fuzzy distorted riffs that is filling up most of the background, while the leads often throw in some very melancholic melodies that are barely distinguishable from the rest, but are immensely involved in creating the atmosphere this album has to offer. Said atmosphere is being dominated by darkness and evokes an unpleasant and unsettling mood that is typical for a lot of the heavier side of doom metal. The stoner elements are adding some sprinkles of psychedelia while the blackened riffs enhance the melancholy that's hidden within the band's sound and fits their themes of desolation and misanthropy very nicely.

The vocals that got added to this mix are also quite interesting and varied, ranging from ultra-low growls over some sludgy blackened screams all the way to some faint and calm choirs that sound quite a bit occult. Both versions are performed quite decently, further intensifying both the heavy, pitch-black atmosphere and the grimmer, almost cold black metal side of things while keeping both worlds fairly well connected. There's not too much variation in tone and performance, but why would you need that really? It fits the rest of the music and that's all that matters, and there's lengthy instrumental segments anyway. Speaking of fitting the theme, the production suits this kind of album almost perfectly. It's quite rough and lo-fi, leading to rumbling bass drums, fuzzy riffs that blur into one another, but it's also pretty thick, energetic and heavy as all hell while also leaving room for the melancholy and melodic vibes to unfold their magic. All in all, everything on this record is contributing to the experience and manages to create a very intense, dark and unsettling mix of funeral doom and black metal that I haven't heard all that often.

Abske Fides are not even close to anything I regularly listen to, but they managed to write an album that I like quite a bit and that I really enjoyed listening to during the writing process of this review. BUT I'm fairly convinced I'll never revisit "Imóveis Ares", simply because I'm not a big fan of music that slow. Anyone who does like that on the other hand should easily find himself spinning this album quite a few times, because it is surprisingly interesting and varied for a funeral doom record and even has some slight twists to offer that keep one hooked to this 40 minute record.