It’s the weekend! What better way to get it started than with the latest installment of “Funeral Doom Friday”. This weekly column looks to shed some light onto some of the darkest, most depressing, and discordant metal out there. Funeral Doom stems from the deepest depths of Death-Doom and Dirge music. Each week, the goal is to highlight some of the newest music or rediscover classic works from some of the earliest bands and originators such as Australia’s Mournful Congregation, United States’s Evoken, UK’s Esoteric and the Finnish Thergothon. Feel free to share your opinions and suggestions in the comments!
Migration Fest is quickly approaching and the excitement for the first installation of this festival is reaching carrying capacity. The lineup features a number of amazing Black, Death, and Doom Metal bands including a handful of Funeral Doom bands like Mournful Congregation. Also within the midst of the festival is the hometown band, Ēōs. The Olympia-based band is playing the festival's opening pre-show on August 11th to help kick off the inaugural festivities. With Migration a week out, it seemed fitting to put a spotlight on Ēōs and showcase the kind of music that fans can look forward to hearing come next week.
To this point, Ēōs has released two demos both of which were released in 2015. The demos combined include three tracks sprawling 41 minutes. Released in the first half of 2015, the demos bolster an already strong trend of great Doom Metal coming out of the Pacific Northwest. Maybe it is something in the water in that portion of the country, but Ēōs's first couple of recordings provide great promise for a group that began in 2014. Even from three songs, the discipline to craft such long and overpowering compositions is very much apparent in the music of Ēōs. Their music reminds me a lot of Evoken's Atra Mors. There are moments where Ēōs's tempo shifts move between Death Doom and Dirge move as seamlessly as the New Jersey-based progenitors of American Funeral Doom. My hope is more music will be coming out from the band sometime in the near future.
The group's demos have been linked at the bottom as usual and if you like them well enough they are for sale on Ēōs's Bandcamp page where you can name your own price for them. If you are planning on being in attendance at Migration Fest, Ēōs will be selling tapes of their demos during their set. You can follow the band on Facebook as well to get updates as new music or shows arise. Also, if anyone is planning on being at the festival, I will see you there. I will be taking next week off from the column to check out all of the goings-on that Olympia will have to offer that week. Have a great weekend!
