Unadulterated doom at its most magnificent…
Released by Seeing Red Records on 18 May 2018 and reviewed by Jason Guest
With The Beyond, the debut full length French four-piece Deathbell, is doom-laden fuzz swathed in hazy and haunting atmospherics, ten-ton riffs, hammer horror drums, chilling organ work and enthralling and enchanting vocal melodies. The opening title track is colossal, the guitar melodies and the subtle-yet-solid organ layers emerging as the track develops and giving extra weight to this already heavy instrumental introduction.
With ‘Emerald Eyes Shine’, Lauren Gaynor’s vocals make their first appearance, her voice ethereal, majestic and spellbinding, the foggy and fearful atmospherics tightening their grip as we make our way to the immense heft of the 9-minute epic ‘Come To Trouble’, an utter beast of a track in both composition and effect. Shifting the dynamics through a cavalcade of powerful peaks and doomy troughs, here, Deathbell are at their most threatening. While ‘Over The Rim’ is as moving as is it emotive, ‘They Still Wander’ is thundering, its dark air thick and heaving with mystical dread, and closing track ‘Rise From Your Grave’ moves between the subtle and subdued to the overwhelming and ominous.
This is (at the time of writing) digitally available on Bandcamp where you can name your own price. I suggest you get it. Then, when it becomes available through Seeing Red Records on CD in May, spoil yourself with a copy. Failing that, get the vinyl when it’s released through Kozmik Artifactz. Why? Deathbell know their craft. They know when to shift the gears up and shift them down, they know when to make us face the light and when to urge us into the darkness, and they know best of all that there’s no need to sully the soundscape with excess. With The Beyond is unadulterated doom at its most magnificent.
Track list:
- With The Beyond
- Emerald Eyes Shine
- Come To Trouble
- Over The Rim
- They Still Wander
- Rise From Your Grave
