Journey Through Lands Unknown

As one of the standard bearers of the current wave of Funeral Doom, Pantheist is by far the least Funeral of the pack. While they have Funeral elements within their genetic makeup, they are more in the Doom/Death Metal field. They're tempos have always been faster than what is considered "True" Funeral Doom. On this album they distance themselves, quite thoroughly too, from their own sound and style attempting the fuse 70's Prog Rock with more modern Doom and general "Extreme" music elements. The end result is a mixed bag of good, bad and what the fuck.

First off, they get high points for their reinvention. However, they lose points for their haphazard attempt to fuse two very different animals. Considering the 3 year break between this and their last release, one would think that this would've been more than just a slathering of influences. In saying that, the production is a noticeable step down from 'The Pains of Sleep'. Had the music been preformed just a little bit better this would've been a good thing and added more of a retro feel to the music.

The guitars are fairly progressive in their delivery, but thankfull, this isn't Dream Theater. They are a mixture of melodic and heavy and contain many of their former traits. They are also more mature sounding. On the bands prior releases they sometimes come across as juvenile but not here. The bass is the same, with perhaps a few more nuances here and there. The keyboards are (along with the song writing) the biggest departure. They are 150% 70's Prog all the way. Just hearing them by themselves you'd easily mistake what you were listening too. Its apparent that Kostas has either just discovered Deep Purple, or they are a guilty pleasure of his because there is a lot of DP in this album.

The drums are a little more expressive, but this is to be expected given the new direction. The vocals are the usual mix of clean and growled, except instead of spoken/chanted they're sung most of the time.

This album is both good and bad as the band have finally reached a point where they are experimenting and not just putting out the same old, same old. How this is a good thing is that this album isn't boring like the rest of their catalog. This is bad because its really hard to consider this Doom. Musically this is more Progressive/Death/Rock than Doom. This will surely upset fans as its such a drastic change, but those open to the weird and unique should find something of interest here.

Band with a certain discographic experience on its shoulders, Pantheist are a Belgian band (with members of other bands like Esoteric) dedicated to an interesting form of doom metal. Some speak of funeral doom, and even if the rhythms are a little more various than the average, the definition is fitting.

Big part of the choirs put there are of clear liturgical inspiration, and seems coming from within a cathedral (but they also make use of some middle eastern edge ,like in "Unknown Land"). The production is not that good, but that does not hide the huge qualities of the album that, especially in its first half, can show a big multiform nature, under every point of view.

Vocally speaking as well as the mentioned choirs we find whispered and even growl parts; the rhythms, though being quite slow, also present some acceleration; the keyboard scores can move from the piano arrangements to orchestral/symphonic approaches, but they can also adopt a seventies-like organ sound (the very nice "Dum Apiro Despero" is a true monument to the old hard rock).

The second half of the album, more linearly funeral doom, is a bit below the album average, but that does not deny "Journey Through Lands Unknown" is not only an interesting album, but also an exciting one.

Originally written for Silent Scream http://www.silentscreamzine.com/Home.asp?Lang=ENG