About as slow as Evoken's release schedule, who have continuously added one more year to the gap between releases since 2007's A Caress Of The Void. I still vividly remember nik's review of Hypnagogia, and I'm legitimately baffled that it came out seven years ago, because it definitely didn't feel like as long a wait. A long wait, the longest, it still is, one that now finds the band having passed its thirtieth anniversary as a band. So is Mendacium still capable of evoking those same feelings of despair and solitude?
Well, one thing that Hypnagogia did differently was to be more overtly conceptual, presenting the story of a soldier in world war one journaling his last hours. It did arrive at a time where everyone from 1914 to Sabaton made world war one the theme of the day, so when this new album retains the conceptual nature but shifts its narrative to one that's even less contemporary, it does make Mendacium tale of a 14th century Benedictine monk that's confined to his room due to illness feel more unique. Grueling decay is a feeling that feels very fit to be evoked this slow funeral doom style, whether it's the decay of illness or the decay of war. And I know the Latin in the titles makes sense thematically, but I can't help but giggle knowing that there's a funeral doom metal song titled "Sext".
The late middle ages setting does also aesthetically go hand in hand with the gothic touches that Evoken go for, ones that are not overt enough for anyone to call thing anything close to gothic metal, but the band has a knack for sprinkling melodies that contrast with the heaviness that comes from the death doom side, as well as finding ways to make the paces have some variety even if they're all varying kinds of slow. For an hour long album that's dedicated to the slower paces, Mendacium does manage to avoid monotony by making it feel like there's always something changing or something worth paying attention to, and none of its changing elements, from the cleaner vocals to the interludes that use either acoustic guitars or dungeon-ish synths, feel shoehorned specifically to add variety.
Mendacium is perhaps not as thrilling or as harrowing as the band's peak material from 2001-2007. One could make the case that the gothic affectations, the increased melodic touch, and the very clean production courtesy of someone who played in Guns N' Roses (a very eyebrow raising name to read when that was my only reference for who Bumblefoot is), make the album lose the appeal that it might've had with a rawer touch. But there's something about it that does feel like the kind of album that needed such a long wait. It's somewhat fitting to praise such a slow album for not feeling rushed in any way.
