Band:	Descend Into Despair
Album:	The Bearer Of All Storms
Style:	Funeral doom metal
Release date:	January 28, 2014
A review by:	Auntie Sahar

01. Portrait Of Rust
02. Mirrors Of Flesh
03. Pendulum Of Doubt
04. Triangle Of Lies
05. The Horrific Pale Awakening
06. Plânge Glia De Dorul Meu
07. The Embrace Of Earth

Funeral doom can tend to feel like melodic death metal in the sense that the style often seems to get redundant, composed mostly of a sea of stale fish with a few shining gems lurking deep within its waters. Thankfully, Romania's Descend Into Despair are one such gem, stepping outside some of the typical tendencies of their style with The Bearer Of All Storms, and offering us one of the first great debuts of 2014.

The distinction that sets Descend Into Despair apart from many of their contemporaries is the fact that their music is not entirely monotonous, and actually contains a powerful sense of melody that may strike some listeners as a bit strange for funeral doom. The Bearer Of All Storms doesn't feel as much like a journey through light-deprived cemeteries (a la Evoken, Tyranny) as it feels like the tale of a dying old man, lamenting the fact that he has to leave, but also celebrating all the good memories he had while alive. Tracks like "The Horrific Pale Awakening" and "Embrace Of Earth," especially, contain a warm, epic layer of choir-like effects that help to bring about a gothic, almost spiritually cleansing mood. The music is indeed still sorrowful, but more in the sense of "I'm passing on, goodbye everyone, I love you" than in the typically ominous and foreboding mood that many funeral doom bands employ.

Then again, Descend Into Despair are a funeral doom band, and their debut, while slightly differing from the rest of the pack, does definitely stick to convention in more ways than not. The riffs do have an overall sense of gloom and melancholy, and the atmosphere of the album seems to borrow heavily from early Skepticism, who always did have a bit of an orchestral tinge to their music's ambience. Meanwhile, Denis Ungerean's growls are familiar as the style's vocals ever get, and destroy hopes and dreams in the way that extreme doom fans all know and love.

Descend Into Despair are, in short, a pretty good example of a band that know how to stick to the core of the style from which they come, while also having enough of a personality to give them a little sense of distinction as well. The ambient elements and occasional clean vocals on The Bearer Of All Storms give it a more dynamic, emotional edge, while the typical funeral doom ingredients help to make it not too far out there and unfamiliar, and it's this blend that ultimately makes it a pretty decent release. These guys and Altar Of Betelgeuze have probably put forth my favorite debuts of the year thus far. Are you down for some good ol' melodic melancholy? Then get some good heaphones and begin the descent!