Funeral doom on a Friday? Haven't seen that before. We also haven't seen a new album from funerary titans, Pantheist, in seven years, but that changes today. Time has seen Kostas Panagioutou and company move between outright funeral doom and a more progressive doom over the years. In 2018 however, the band comes full circle, returning to their threnodic origin while channeling their other experimentations. Their fifth album, Seeking Infinity, arrives next week and with it comes another magnificent display of extreme doom.
Across six tracks, Panagiotou and his newest band members—which include Dan Neagoe (drums, Clouds, Eye of Solitude, etc.) and Frank Allain (guitars, Fen, etc.)—blend various tempos, arrangements, and vocal styles to build an array of various doom stylings. The band taps into moments of gothic and progressive doom on "Control and Fire" and "500 BC to 300 AD – The Enlightened Ones." The instrumental "1453 – An Empire Crumbles" is a wonderful foray into one of the album's most powerful moments, "Emergence." An outright lament, the album's penultimate track is a deeply evocative moment on Seeking Infinity (and a personal favorite from Pantheist's discography). Yet, throughout the album, there are brilliant moments that make each listen a new adventure.
Band mastermind Kostas Panagiotou spoke to Seeking Infinity saying, "We are proud to present our first album in 7 years, Seeking Infinity. It's a concept album that has gone through many trials and tribulations until this end result you can now exclusively hear in its entirety through Metal Injection. It has survived line-up changes and older versions which were thrown in the bin altogether. All these challenges made this record stronger and more individual. The six tracks all have their own individuality and unique approach, but somehow form a coherent whole that we are very confident will appeal to fans of the band as well as fans of the funeral doom death genre in general."
Panagiotou also discussed the plans for distribution for the new album, "This time we have also teamed up with The Vinyl Division to ensure that Seeking Infinity becomes the first Pantheist album to also come out on vinyl, as well as a digipack CD version released through our own label Melancholic Realm Productions."
In a year loaded with excellent extreme doom releases, Pantheist makes their case for one of the biggest and brightest moments for this genre this year with Seeking Infinity. Check out an exclusive stream of the album below!
https://soundcloud.com/kozzypan/sets/pantheist-seeking-infinity/s-varuz?mc_cid=5ecdf32315&mc_eid=c81f623c14
