Mournument - Smouldering Into Dust review
| Band: | Mournument |
| Album: | Smouldering Into Dust |
| Style: | Death doom metal, Folk doom metal |
| Release date: | November 2022 |
01. On Rain And Thunder
02. Chasm Of Abandoned Souls
03. Sea Of Desperation
04. A Funeral Poem
05. Grey Was The Chant Of My Endless Autumn
06. Rimü
Amusingly, I fired Smouldering Into Dust up for another round while typing the review and midway through the opening track, “On Rain And Thunder” a freak hail & thunderstorm set off, killing our power. Talk about setting the mood.
So, Mournument hail from the land of Malbec, “Completo” hot dogs and Roddy before his parents sold him into indentured servitude to work the IKEA mines of arctic Sweden. That’d be Chile if you are still unclear. And they play folk doom.
“What about the folk?!” you may ask.
Well, it’s sort of standard funeral doom, only with acoustic guitar. And strings at times. They also mix in clean sung harmonies and almost Viking-like chants, which for stretches of time might have you questioning if you accidentally clicked Monumension rather than Mournument. Ok, maybe it doesn’t sound quite like anything off of that particular album, but it did have an Enslaved-like quality to it.
In general, I do like the acoustic nylon/classical guitars. Whereas other funeral doom acts like Skepticism might use an organ to lead a song off with an imposing sense of ominous grandeur with a side helping of dread, the guitar creates an aura of fragile beauty, calm before or a temporary respite from the slo-mo storm, as is greatly exhibited in the mid-section of “Chasm of Abandoned Souls”.
I will say that the entirely clean following song, “Sea Of Desperation” does serve as a nice lulling passage, it does perhaps overstay it’s welcome a little bit… making the return of the doom with the far more familiar sounding “A Funeral Poem” giving you the feeling of walking out of your airport after a long trip away. You’re home. You’re back in Doom County.
While not a mind-blowing, life-changing experience, I did rather enjoy Smouldering Into Dust and I am looking forward to what Mournument do next.
Bandcamp Was The Chant Of My Endless Autumn.
 | Written on 03.12.2022 by BitterCOld has been officially reviewing albums for MetalStorm since 2009. |
Comments
Comments: 3
Visited by: 75 users
| Starvynth i c deaf people Posts: 2986 From: Germany  |
Spot-on review, Mr. Bitter! I got my first dose of this album a few weeks ago while adding the band profile and I have to say that my 30 years younger self would have been wallowing in joyful ecstasy over these gloomy sounds. This is really good, especially on the vocal front. Is it just me, or does Alfredo Pérez sound a lot like David Gold? However, the very first marriage between violins and doom/death was three decades ago, and today is not 1992 anymore. Still, overall a very enjoyable listen, even on multiple spins.
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| BitterCOld The Ancient One Posts: 15250  |
Written by Starvynth on 04.12.2022 at 16:01 Yeah, I know it is by far from the first. Just mentioned them as an additional component.
---- get the fuck off my lawn. Beer Bug Virus Spotify Playlist crafted by Nikarg and I. Feel free to tune in and add some pertinent metal tunes!
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| Starvynth i c deaf people Posts: 2986 From: Germany |
Written by BitterCOld on 04.12.2022 at 23:32 You got me wrong, but that's because I expressed myself in a misleading way. Sorry, my bad. What I actually meant to say is that this album would have blown me away in the 90s. Not necessarily because of the vocals, but especially because of the violins. I always loved classical strings in doom metal and back then it would have been an absolute novelty. Even now, it's the violins that do a lot to keep this album from getting lost in the sheer mass of new releases, so it's perfectly logical that you mentioned them. It's just like you said: it's not a mind-blowing, life-changing experience, but that's what it could have been for me personally if it had been released three decades earlier, if that makes any sense.
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