Band:	Catacombs
Album:	In The Depths Of R'lyeh
Style:	Funeral doom metal
Release date:	2006
A review by:	KwonVerge

01. In The Depths Of R'lyeh
02. Dead Dripping City
03. At The Edge Of The Abyss
04. Where No Light Hath Shone... (But For That Of The Moon)
05. Fallen Into Shadow
06. Awakening Of The World's Doom (Reprise)

Catacombs is a band that was formed during the birth of the first half of the 00s and it is the one-man project of the persona behind the mysterious nickname Xathagorra Mlandroth [John Del Russi]. After some EPs during 2003/2004 the band managed to return during 2006 with its first full-length release, "In The Depths Of R'lyeh", and what an almighty and utterly promising debut album it is i must confess! Catacombs move in funeral-driven doom/death metal sounscapes, something we can refer to in otherwords as extreme doom metal, and Xathagorra definitely knows what he's doing! While listening to this US band you may notice Evoken references, but in a slower pace, and of course the distressing feeling we all loved in the guitars of diSEMBOWELMENT is present in the agonising floating guitar melodies (without the more upbeat outbursts of the Australian legends), something i highly appreciated since it's not something everyone can achieve if he can't feel it deep inside!

With respect to the doom metal scene of the 90s, Catacomb create their own world of mourning and doleful shades, a world drowning in oblivion and oppresion with every single second passing by as the album goes on! "In The Depths Of R'lyeh" at times sounds like down-tempo doom/death, downtrodden and grieving, whereas at others it becomes dangerously funeral, lowering the tempo even more! The guitar work is simplistic, but who really cares, it's funeral doom/death metal we're talking about, which means meaningful and filled with atmosphere/emotion guitar work through simplicity. Whether it is soul-crushing and ultra heavily distorted slow, at times a slightly bit more upbeat, riffing, or those distressing floating melodies i was talking about above, the guitars never fail to evoke an intense sense of loss and abandonment. The rhythm section couldn't interpret faster than the guitars, it always paces in the same tempo as them, with the drumming sounding imposing, evoking walls of sound, and the bass lines unfolding desperate sequences in the air. As for the vocals, they are deeply expressive, unearthly and weeping grunts that never fail to escalate the intensity of Catacombs' atmosphere.

For more than 70 minutes "In The Depths Of R'lyeh" is going to entrance your existence through your wandering in the corridors of dreadful desires, losing your self "in the depths of r'lyeh" as you slowly find the "dead dripping city" "at the edge of the abyss", there "where no light hath shone but for that of the moon" in a world that has "fallen into shadow"; and you are left there, waiting, praying for "the awakening of the world's doom"! Fans of the funeral doom/death metal scene won't feel disappointed, on the contrary, so proceed, oh forlorn souls!