To Take Up the Cross

Latitude Egress is a doom metal oriented solo project based in Germany. Its sole member, Nerrath, has been active in the black metal scene for many years, with his other project Horn and also as the drummer of Zerstörer, to name a few. “To Take Up The Cross” is the band’s first album, although it had some more releases previously under a different name (Licht Erlischt…), with which I am not familiar. This album has been releases on October 27th on Art of Propaganda, being mostly a black metal label (Horned Almighty, Anti, Lugnasad,…).

The music on this album is definitely doomy, but doesn’t exactly fall in one of the genre’s well defined categories. It has some more blackish songs, which follow a steady tempo with hypnotic riffs, as well as much slower songs akin to funeral doom. Yet the music is not as heavy as typical funeral doom, and not as dark as black/doom. The composition doesn’t rely so much on riffs than on ambiance-inducing progressions. So all in all, finding an appropriate genre tag for this album proves rather challenging.

The focus element of the music of Latitude Egress lies in the vocal department. While most of extreme doom bands make use of growls or screams, with some bands also opting for clean, operatic-style vocals, Latitude Egress goes for neither of them, bringing forward something completely original. The vocals here are clean, but not “singing” clean. Instead, the singer alternates between some half-spoken, half-chanted parts, and some rough and powerful parts. The latter style is particularly appealing to me, although I find it very hard to describe. When I first heard it, I immediately thought of Vladimir Vysotsky for some reason. I am in no way claiming that Nerrath is on the same level as a true legend like Vysotsky, but I can’t find many other points of comparison in terms of vocal style.

The resulting mix is somewhat refreshing, as the band manages to create a sound of its own, and sets itself apart from its peers. The musical approach reminds me of Urfaust, with an out-of-the-ordinary vocal style set on a more minimalistic and somewhat flat musical background, although neither the music nor the vocals are directly comparable in this case.

Overall, I enjoyed this release quite a bit, although I would have probably disregarded it completely without the original vocal element. I appreciate the sonic identity the band has created, and I hope to hear more of their material in the future. I do hope, though, that their future releases will have more memorable riffs, otherwise it might get boring very fast. I feel that currently, Latitude Egress relies too much on the vocals with the rest of the music slightly neglected, and although the vocal element is definitely worthy, there is some room for improvement in the approach taken.

Originally written for http://destructive-music.com/