Stream from the Heavens

Doom metal has found itself to be one of the most underground genres in metal, everyone seems to know death, thrash and power metal (the odd person at least know black metal as that genre where they paint their faces), but when you talk about Doom metal, most people give you a bewildered stare and assume you’re talking about some super cosmic evil metal more deranged then death or black metal. Then you tell them it’s pretty much early Sabbath and they are aghast. But the thing is, they weren’t exactly wrong. For behind the surface of Doom metal, was something more deranged then death metal and doom metal, and it took the combined forces of the two with a gallop of dark ambient to make one of the darkest, most ball crushing, schizophrenic genres in metal: Funeral Doom Metal. And this album released in 1994 by the Finnish band, Thergothon, is pretty much the start of it all...

The album introduces itself with the track, Everlasting, to a pretty upbeat intro.It starts with a synth line that sounds like it came directly from a church keyboard, the subtle cheapness of the treble-high keyboard being pretty effectively with the slow, heavy, reverb laden riffs to help evoke a sad, melancholic atmosphere. While clean vocals are first introduced, it becomes clear that the extremely low-growled vocals of Niko used later on are to be the dominant force in evoking a sense of despair and darkness. The drums slowly thunder away in the background as the lead guitars sync with the synth to create a harmonious melody that pulls the song together. This formula is pretty much definitive for Funeral Doom, creating a sense of slow pending doom and marching like depression perfectly. While there is melody in this genre and especially this album, there are plenty of riffs that evoke such a sense of evil in their dissonance that it sends chills up your spine, such as the main riff in Yet the Watchers Guard. Thergothon also like to play with some pretty unconventional melodies, as well as using some flutes and medieval instruments in a few segments to evoke a sort of ancient element.

The guitar work on this is pretty admirable, if you ask me. Although a lot of the riffs are at near-Drone level slowness, It's hard to keep timing when switching to Death metal speed and back, not to mention that there are still plenty of interesting and well executed lead bits that harmonize with the synths. The riffs are still the dominant force here, as in most metal genres, and they spend most of their time pulling the songs along perfectly. Whereas a lot of funeral doom is incredibly synth laden, this record keeps a perfect ratio, with riffs being dominant but the synths staying in a perfect complimentary position, while also having some moments of its own every once in awhile. The bass work is...sort of present, the guitars are tuned pretty low, I think C, so it’s hard to tell, but it does make an obvious appearance a few times here. Drumming is basic: the odd blast beat, mostly slow paced marches, as Funeral Doom should be.

Lyrically, Thergothon use their lyrics to conjure up a very dark picture, with lots of HP Lovraftian-esque images of red skied, barren wastelands filled with “dark ones” and such. I got a bit of a Nordic themed-lyric in the last song, “Crying Blood & Crimson Snow” as well, and some nature in the song “Elemental”. The vocals narrate these stories perfectly, with the growls being used to truly translate, or at least translate in growl, the dark stories being told by the instruments. Typically, the structures of a song on this album would be to get a riff or two and then go on a cosmic “funeral trip” of droning riffs and sustained synths, then come back to the others riffs, maybe they’ll be a chorus somewhere in between all of that...It's hard to generalize as each song is pretty different.

If you have just started to get onto Funeral Doom, and you just got hear from say, Ahab or Evoken, this album might be a bit hard to swallow. It’s definitely a grower, as it flew straight past my head the first few time around, but after maybe 5 casual listens it clicked, mostly on “Yet the watchers Guard”, but if you give it a good proper listen you would probably be as hooked as everyone else is. Listen for the history factor if not the pure Funeral Doom factor...