Band:	Wreck Of The Hesperus
Album:	Light Rotting Out
Style:	Funeral doom metal, Sludge doom metal
Release date:	2011
A review by:	KwonVerge

01. Kill Monument
02. Cess Pit People
03. Holy Rheum - I) Night Of Negative Stars
04. Holy Rheum - II) Hologram Law

Whenever an Irish act crosses my way and I get overwhelmed from the very first spin, it becomes a lifetime relationship; alongside Primordial and Mourning Beloveth the triangle is complete with Wreck Of The Hesperus.

The tentacles of torment have been awakened from their slumber in the deepest sewers and are slowly marching underneath the city towards its borders, to surround it in one take all of a sudden. Wreck Of The Hesperus, five years after their devastating debut work (The Sunken Threshold), present their second attempt, Light Rotting Out. The title says it all and the obscure skeletal/humane duality complex in the cover artwork hides even more. Are you ready for swimming lessons in the murky waters of sludge-flirting funeral doom?

So, the first highlight that comes to the surface while listening to the album is its production, it' s cleaner this time, something that helps the instruments unfold everything they want to present in the most appropriate way, alone and in unity at the same time. Beware though, I'm not referring to a high class crystal clear production, it would ruin the ambiance anyway. The walls of sound are always there to blur in a surrounding way the overall outcome without causing harm to the band's visions. The album is dry like the desert, unfriendly and ravenous like the sewers, sterile like a future picture from the womb of the earth.

And then all hell breaks loose with the slowly expanding riffing as it blends with floating minimal anti-melodies while the echoing percussion embraces the intense drumming and the colossal bass lines. This is what I call an appropriate environment for such hateful boiling screams to blossom like peril. During the second part/half of the third track, "The Holy Rheum", some otherworldly dissonant saxophone surgeries partake in the overall madness. And who couldn't be missing? The "Doom Over The World" preacher, Albert Witchfinder of Reverend Bizarre, Spiritus Mortis etc, lending to Wreck Of The Hesperus a clean interpretation during "The Holy Rheum".

"Portals in shadows, everyone a little darker, portals in shadows, everyone a little deeper," the choice is always yours.

PS: The A5 digi-pack owns.