Mournful Congregation - The June Frost

label: Weird Truth Productions, 2009

contact: www.myspace.com/mournfulcongregation

genre: funeral doom
hodnocení: 9

„Grandpa, how to go to a cemetery?“ „Go this way, my boy, but it’s far away...“ Well, funeral doom. Sometimes I say to myself it is such an injustice that this genre remains a periphery of a metal community’s periphery. It has been conquering just a few human hearts as if it felt good deep in the catacombs and actually, it doesn‘t need the sun (where zbytečný). In comparison with contemporary popularity of sludge and postmetal that are not so far from it, it’s more than perplexing. Quality music is often created out of the shine of spotlights.

If anybody of your friends thought Skepticism and Esoteric play slowly, recommend him Australian band Mournful Congregation. It will be the same contest as between a snail and a dung-beetle. A sound of a distant bell introducing the whole album starts an opening intro Solemn Strikes the Funeral Blood. It radically draws you deep inside the style of funeral doom metal that despite its frequent clichés doesn’t stop producing valuable bands. The second song in order, White Cold Wrath Burnt Frozen Blood runs for seventeen minutes, takes off slowly and ends even slower. It starts with a stagnant riff that is repeated through next three minutes, but afterwards the band (with its brain Damon Good) comes up with one strong riff after another and keeps listener’s attention in suspension. If I don’t take into account today‘s popular drone/doom bands (represented by Southern Lord label), I don’t remember such a slow record. Really, Mournful Congregation at first listen shocks with the ultra-slow paces that stretch like a fried cheese. Even a listener used to the typical genre ingredients will wonder why he can’t move. The June Frost paralyses the body, glues up the neurons with ruinous atmosphere, drowns you in guitar monolithic minor chords. It is not even possible to beat into the rhythm, because it stands still and a listener in these swampy waters literally prays for another beat into the drum kit.

Directly from the band’s title you can find out that the trio’s goal is to musicalize the mournfully beautiful states of mind. For them, funeral doom is not just a pigeon-hole anchored in fear of death and Hades, the band can work with these themes admirably. Finally, it sounds by no means desperately or negatively. It devours with its elevating ethereality and fascinates with a rousing mood. It is like a feeling when someone standing above an abyss could jump and wouldn‘t have to feel miserable. Sometimes Mournful Congregation draws from drone’s wrath, but this doesn’t dominate here, it’s alternated with a sharply sounding solo guitar that leads your eyes somewhere behind the horizon. This sound of a guitar evokes – with its softly sounding LSD melodies – the legacy of Disembowelment. Not even speaking about the British devastating Esoteric (in MC you can find up to four layers of guitarwork), but MC can¨t match them in extremeness and actually they don’t even try to. The band expresses itself with an exquisite musicianship, leaves behind genre savage primitivism; a lot of the acoustic melodies can’t deny the spirit of the classical music (see eponymous The June Frost). With this element they fall into the romantically oriented branch of doom metal that in their case doesn’t evoke pathos or kitsch. The record can also show off a fantastic sound production that amplifies the final impression with its depth and purity.

What to say to conclude? There’s not so much. The band made a big progress since the release The Monad of Creation. They got rid of possible competition by not having anyone who is genre related to them. Since Maniacal Vale there is again a record that demonstrates a vitality of the style. Mournful Congregation created a wonderful record that proved to me again that to cry sometimes doesn’t hurt.

MOURNFUL CONGREGATION:
Damon Good - vocals, bass, guitar
Adrian Bickle - drums
Justin Hartwig - guitar

8 / 60:17

tracklist:
1. Solemn Strikes the Funeral Chime
2. White Cold Wrath Burnt Frozen Blood
3. Descent of the Flames
4. The June Frost
5. A Slow March to the Burian
6. The Februar Winds
7. Suicide Chlor
8. The Wreath

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mewithoutYou - It’s All Crazy! It’s All False! It’s All a Dream! It’s Allright

label: Tooth And Nail Records, 2008
contact: www.myspace.com/ mewithoutyou
genre: indie/folk
rating: 7.5
mewithoutYou, formerly pretty sharp post-hardcore have changed almost out of recognition on the new disc. Forget about massive tracks overflowing with emotions in the veins of Wolf Am I, forget about guitar noises and aggressive drum beats, too loud, too many screams to plead mercy, rather turn the volume down a bit, substitute rebellion by humility, if you get slapped just show your second cheek.
The leap is really huge. Instead of crude performance full of energy, there is a compilation of eleven utterly calm, polite tracks full of biblical metaphors about forgiveness, instead of classic set of guitars, bass and drums there is large scale of various more or less exitic instruments, amplifiers remain locked in the rascal years, summing it up, you have in front of yourself eleven harmless indie/folkish pieces. Don’t know exactly what has happened with the band since their last album, if they went through some experience that turns heart outside out and brings new attitudes, if they found up till now dormant deep love for folkish things. Just look at their live performances, the times of sweat, emotions and weird dances are over, now there are four settled guys seated on chairs, where did this changes come from during the three years after the Brother, Sister i can’t tell.
I don’t want to say that i don’t like the new album. Meanwhile previous album absorbed you by brutally spilled emotions, this time the work is much subtler, especially ingenius production tricks, handy incorporation of large number of untraditional instruments that make out of It’s All Crazy! a diverse and rich spectacle. Even as the songs do get deep into the folkish matters, sometimes for my taste even too much, still there is a unyfing melancholincal dreamy thread knitting the stuff together, even though not as strong and intense as on previous efforts. And, of course, what you will immediately recongize mewithoutYou by, frontman Aaron Weiss, even though he no longer is the ardent and passionate, on the contrary you have in front of yourself a seated, older, calm preacher. But still his voice has the immediately recognaziable husky, optimisticaly broken flavour and his lyrics still haven’t lost neither head, nor heel nor fantasy.
From what i have written it is not really clear what i think about the new disc. As with every drastical change in the musical direction, I expect lots of different reactions, ranging from utter disillusion (true fans disappointed) to utter happiness and love. I personally am somewhere in the middle, i like It’s all crazy, i like the subtle melancholic vibe, i like the production and wide variety of instruments. It’s not love, more like somwhere in the middle of liking, but you can peacefully listen to it even in the middle of people with whom you have absolutely no musical overlap. Easy listening, well composed album, indie mixed with folk, mixed well.

mewithoutYou:
Aaron Weiss - vocals
Michael Weiss – guitar
Greg Jehanian – bass
Richard Mazzotta - drums

11 / 44:49

bible:
1. Every Thought a Thought of You
2. The Fox the Crow and the Cookie
3. The Angel of Death Came to David’s Room
4. Goodbye I!
5. A Stick a Carrot and String
6. Bullet to Binary (part II)
7. Timothy Hay
8. Fig with a Bellyache
9. Cattail Down
10. The King Beetle on a Cocnut Estate
11. Allah Allah Allah

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