Band:	The Howling Void
Album:	The Womb Beyond The World
Style:	Funeral doom metal, Symphonic doom metal
Release date:	September 17, 2012
A review by:	Susan

01. The Womb Beyond The World
02. The Silence Of Centuries End
03. Lightless Depths
04. Eleleth

This album came to me labeled "symphonic funeral doom" and my interest was piqued: it's not every day that you see those two genres cozied up together. Liking this album is really dependent on you, and so I'll just say this: if you get bored by funeral doom, or if you roll your eyes at the prominent use of keyboards, turn back now.

If long passages of slow music don't bore you, then this would be the perfect soundtrack to an evening of mediation. Lie down, close your eyes, and imagine yourself walking down a long, dim hallway. There are doors on either side, maybe you go in one and see your future, maybe you continue down the hallway until it turns into an open field at dusk, with distant stars lending the only light, save the quickly disappearing orb over the horizon. Maybe?

So, the keyboards are very prominent in terms of being the tool for providing atmosphere. Usually they layer on the mood quite nicely but a few random times they really cross the line into being obvious and a little hokey. You've been warned. Take a deep breath, it'll pass. If you can get over it then you may find the mood darkly beautiful at some points and subtly epic at others (especially the final track "Eleleth"), and you'll really get to appreciate what else is going on with the well mixed guitars and drums and the sparsely used vocals, which are of the harsh and pained variety.

In addition to the atmospheric keyboards, this one-man-band deftly applies the guitars and drums to add the real substance and weight to the music. I won't say it goes so far as "crushing" but it gets close. It's slightly warmer than that, and somehow not 1000% hopeless like so much of this genre loves to be. That sets it apart, for me, that it's more of a chose-your-own-adventure doom album than a you're-going-to-commit-suicide-by-the-end doom album. And that can be quite refreshing.

Listen and buy at Bandcamp.