Negative Evocation Rites

'Negative Evocation Rites’ is the latest offering from Swedish glass-half-emptiers The Funeral Orchestra. It’s a grim fucking album of compelling funeral doom that borrows heavily from genre pioneers Skepticism, but opts to take their techniques in a much darker direction. The most obvious tip of the hat being the cavernous and minimal drums, lifting techniques from classical music and the role timpani drums can play in building crescendos and enhancing the drama as much as actually keeping time. This minimal yet expressive approach to drums is one of Skepticism’s many great gifts to metal as a whole, exemplifying how to get more from less, the importance of creative drumming in slower forms of metal, and touting the virtues of empty space. Look to Joe Gonclaves’ performance on Winter’s ‘Into Darkness’ for a similar rhythmic philosophy.

But the Funeral Orchestra take things in a wholly negative direction when compared to their relatively heroic Finnish forebears. The guitar tone is thick for funeral doom, almost stoner metal thick. When it’s not being put in service of depressive, droning tritones – granted an early Earth vibe thanks to the tone – they construct and layer tremolo riffs that build and fall as tension is drawn out and resolved. Alongside the Earth-on-a-bad trip corridors of empty space, The Funeral Orchestra follow on from 21st century funeral doom trail blazes Elysian Blaze (yep) in their marriage of depressive black metal dissonance with the weightier creative and intellectual potentials found within this style. Vocals are a real mixed bag, offering up everything from black metal, to spoken word, to miscellaneous droning; all of which seems fitting given the scope of ideas The Funeral Orchestra are attempting to unpack here. I say ideas, because there is only really one theme or mood throughout ‘Negative Evocation Rites’, but one that is brought to different levels of intensity and drama, making for a compellingly monotonous experience.

I always find the philosophy of slowness intriguing within metal. Because other forms of metal generally favour the exact opposite approach, dropping the tempos is perceived to be a form of self-imposed limitation, a challenge that – if engaging music is to be brought to bear – different artists approach and overcome in a number of interesting and creative ways (or all too often not overcome at all). As well as plenty of dynamics, empty spaces that gradually amalgamate into a structured, plodding funeral march for our times, The Funeral Orchestra also use soaring tremolo picked guitars in the same way as many bands would use synth strings; creating long, sustained notes to craft a simple, gradually unfolding melody. Underpinning this is a rhythm guitar that replicates the percussive qualities of the drums as opposed to the requisite droning chords of funeral doom. This makes for a more dynamic and multi-faceted listening experience than many funeral doom albums. Atmosphere and mood are not enough, or rather, it has to be a pretty impressive and unique atmosphere if that’s all an album has going for it. Further, the fact that these ideas do coalesce into finales and resolutions makes this album all the more enjoyable(?) to listen, once a droning groove is picked up and run with it feels like the heir to ‘Forest of Equilibrium’ at times.

We could talk more about the different techniques deployed by The Funeral Orchestra. But the real takeaway from this is of course the negative approach. The stoner doom on a really fucking bad day, the classical approach to drums that is put in service of overbearing, hopeless music that won’t even entertain a major third, and vocals that seem to be just as horrified by the whole experience as we are in listening to it. A stylised yet satisfying work, made so precisely because it does not lean too heavily on one particular style or technique for too long.

Originally published at Hate Meditations

I felt a surge of weird joy when I saw that The Funeral Orchestra were returning to the fore of the underground with some new works. Their live experiments had always been dazzling and some of the slowest, most crushing exercises in creepiness. I am now happy to report that "Negative Evocation Rites" is just as detrimental to your health and sanity as "Feeding the Abyss" was. Not that I had much in the way of doubt anyway. This is funeral doom, but the ugly kind. No rich piano to idle the hours of a riff away, no lengthy prose and certainly no scrubbed-clean riffs. It is low and morose stuff; deeply thick and hard to wade through, you just have to give in and submerge.

Outside of the infinitely sinister atmospheres laid down by the murderous guitar tone, you may hear some thin clanging organ lines. They exist to enhance the torturous arduous sea set before thee. The album hinges on this seemingly limited sonic adventurism but Nicklas Rudolfsson aka Priest I and friends make it work. He is of course the mastermind behind that other Gothenburg, Sweden structure of perverse doom n' death, Runemagick. Funeral doom tends to live and die by how far you can stretch a simple sullen musical idea while keeping it vital - as vital as a dismal thing can be kept before the inevitability of irritation is remembered, anyway. TFO has always stood out for having no such inclinations. Instead they write around the premise that something devastating is about to be launched and yet it never does. The music never resolves but that somehow makes these songs feel wholesome and they translate well their visions of exacerbated neuroses well enough without being anticlimactic in the least.

"Flesh Infiltrations" sounds exactly as you'd expect - terrible, inevitable, painful! All wrapped in the vulgar excess of guitar hum and vocalizations that sound both vast and empty. The second part of "Negations" is even more apocalyptic in stance than the first with a burst of tremolo activity towards its close that feels like the swarming of bees. But like bees from Tartarus or some deadlier dwelling. The dramatic drumming serves it well too.

This is a magnificent release all around and there's really no point in taking it apart as I feel it has to be heard in its fullness to be appreciated. It doesn't overstay its dark welcome and it maximizes the craft of atmospheric emphasis that good funeral doom does well without losing the grasp of its essence. The Funeral Orchestra are tasteful gentlemen and skilled at their profession of damnation. I hope with all my heart this isn't the last we hear from them in some time. It's been seventeen years since the last album.