Beyond

Bosque were introduced to me a while ago when I was first getting into extreme metal. The bits of Under the Capricorn Sky that I heard back then were really bewildering and different, but I dug it. Not long afterward, Bosque released their debut full-length Passage which was really mediocre and I just forgot about the band. Since I left them alone though, two more full-lengths have popped up and this year I got to reintroduce myself to the band.

This project is run solely by a Portuguese man named DM and he creates some super raw sounding minimalist bedroom funeral doom. The basic idea of Bosque hasn't changed since the start, but here almost ten years later it certainly has been developed into something more fruitful. Beyond is a unique album, and despite its undeveloped production it's a rather worthy album in the funeral doom genre.

With a super raw approach to this sound, it's a good thing this album is only forty minutes long, which is short by funeral doom standards. Nevertheless, Beyond still has three tracks with all of them being at least thirteen minutes long. Fortunately, there is a more obvious sense of movement in the tracks compared to this band's earlier work; that's quite impressive considering the few elements used to make the music. All we've got is one guitar, drums, a bass that's quite overdriven, and a limited range clean vocal track. There's no symphony, no choirs, no keyboard usage outside of the noise at the beginning and end of the album. Just steady funeral doom strumming with an occasional melodic lead, and I had no problem drifting through this barren desert of a soundscape. The big shake up only happens at the last five minutes of the final track "Enter" when more active riffing and double bass drums kick in to end this album with a cathartic climax.

Bosque have improved in the past decade and are now a band I'm keeping an eye on for future material because Beyond shows a lot of promise for the future. It's funeral doom reduced to its basic elements, but the lack of flashy additives makes this project unique in its own way. I'm hoping to hear more from DM's band in the future.