Stream from the Heavens

Anyone got a blanket and some pillows? Because you might fall asleep while listening to this record. Not because the songs are so beautiful that they send you into a trance, but they are simply boring. Yes, I know the idea of the whole 'funeral doom' subgenre is to be repetitive, slow and mournful, but i just don't connect with it. I don’t understand how playing one chord every one, if not two bars and have some guy gurgling in the background is depressive and mournful. It was almost excruciating listening to the album in its entirety once because it is that boring. The music doesn’t progress and it doesn’t go anywhere. Normally what I find to trigger emotions within myself while listening to music is the dynamics and the overall texture of the music. The music has to have feeling, certain notes have to be accentuated and the music has to go somewhere. It doesn’t build up or lead to anything, the songs all sound the same and very rarely does the song change to anything worth listening to.

My most hated aspect of this album is the guitar. What is the unnecessarily huge amount of phaser/flanger supposed to do? All it makes me do is feel dizzy and force me to turn the CD off immediately, but I forced myself to listen to this so I could give a justified review on it. It keeps reverberating from one ear into the other constantly and sounds so empty. It’s just plain annoying to be quite frank. I think once or twice in the entire album (from what my vague memory of listening to this ‘CD’ tells me) there was an acoustic piece. I was absolutely stunned that the guitarist was actually capable of making music that was half decent, as the entire album showcases him playing one heavily distorted chord a bar. I’m not saying that music is all about how talented the musicians are and how technical the music is, but one chord a bar does not make the music ‘atmospheric’ and ‘depressive’.

Speaking of which, I pity the drummer immensely. Throughout the entire album all he plays is a crash and bass on the first beat, a ride and snare on beat 3 at an excruciatingly low tempo. (Give or take 70 bpm) While recording this album he was either dying of absolute boredom or playing video games while recording it. I honestly think at the speed the album travels at, that could be possible. Once again, it’s not how technical a musician is which makes him talented, it’s his ability to control his/her dynamics with their respective instrument. The drums are at the same volume throughout the whole album. No build-ups, no climaxes to songs, just the same monotonous thing, over and over. Only very rarely does he go into a faster beat but this breath of fresh air is quickly stopped when it goes back to the chord fest.

Now that I have come to think about it, I dislike everything about this album. Everything, period. The vocals are even more annoying than the overly tampered guitar tone. It honestly sounds like someone who ate too much beans and is letting the air out of their rear end.

The only song on the album that is actually bearable is ‘The Unknown Kadath In The Cold-Waste’ which actually compliments the chords with a nifty little melody. It makes me shudder just to think what the other bands in this genre are like, as Thergothon are supposed to be the pioneers of it. In my opinion, give it a try, you might like it, but I honestly can’t bear to listen to it.