Band:	Funebrarum
Album:	Beneath The Columns Of Abandoned Gods
Style:	Death metal
Website:	http://www.funebrarum.com/
Release date:	June 24, 2001
A review by:	Lucas

01. Tombs Of Sleeping Darkness
02. Adoration Of Abscessed Cadavers
03. Miasma Of Pestilence
04. Dormant Hallucination
05. Depths Of Misery
06. Darkening Of The Dead [bonus]
07. Dormant Hallucination [bonus]
08. Adoration Of Abscessed Cadavers [bonus]
09. The Depths Of Misery [bonus]
10. Kingdom Of Suffering Souls [bonus]
11. Abandoned Gods [bonus]
12. Tombs Of Sleeping Darkness [bonus]
13. Incineration Of Mortal Flesh [bonus]

Funebrarum is one of the most-revered Death metal bands of the underground. And it's no secret why. Beneath The Columns Of Abandoned Gods will tell you.

Beneath The Columns Of Abandoned Gods, from now on referred to as Beneath..., is an insanely heavy record. Especially the guitar sound. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if this is some of the heaviest Death metal you'll ever hear. Imagine Coffins in a decompression chamber. No joke.

Funebrarum carefully crafted their heaviness with a few basic elements: 1) insanely bass-heavy guitar distortion, 2) a strong Doom current running rampant through their riffs and 3) a natural instinct for knowing when to slow down, go mid-paced or speed up. But that's not it. Their brand of Swedish-inspired Old School Death metal has a lovely ancient and obscure edge to it, as if it actually emerged from long-forgotten catacombs. If you've read one of Lovecraft's stories, for example "The Nameless City", you'll know what Beneath... sounds like. And all of that is due to the great riffs and the wonderfully dank and mouldy production. Daryl Kahan's vocals sound like an [cliche alert] awakening Chtulhu [/cliche alert]. They're amazingly deep, completely inhuman and possibly unnatural. And for some extra spice, Nick Orlando and Matt Medeiros throw in a sparse wall-clawing solo. Fantastic.

It's a shame this piece of work is only thirty minutes long, because Beneath... is old school Death metal at it's best. Death metal in itself a genre perfectly suitable to evoke images of ancient horrors, hellish torment, forgotten monstrosities and lurking fears, and Funebrarum is one of it's front runners.