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!
There has been a lot of solo projects featured in Funeral Doom Friday so far. In fact, four out of the five features this year have highlighted sensational individual efforts. Lo and behold, this week is not any different. Today brings the premiere of the new album from Germany's Frowning. The Saxony man goes by Val Atra Niteris and has been working as Frowning since 2011. He is releasing his second full-length album next Friday, entitled Extinct. Funeral Doom Friday is excited to bring this new album to readers a week in advance.
Extinct tracks five songs over the course of an hour. Like fellow countrymen, Ahab, or the American Evoken, the emphasis of Val's music lies in a commanding growl and colossal guitar riffs. Val is also accompanied by a couple of guest musicians who lend their funerary talents to Extinct. SG from Suffer Yourself and Val's Ad Cinerem bandmate, Hekjal, appear on the album's first two songs, respectively. Extinct's final two original tracks begin to push towards the 20-mintue mark.
Val's eulogies challenge the typical song structure and begin to push into time ranges that are mastered by only a select few like Mournful Congregation. Yet, Frowning holds ground. "Veiled in Fog" and "Buried Deep" are Extinct's brightest moments. It is Val on his own, directing a procession ridden with grief. The album closes with an emotive cover of Frédéric Chopin's "Marche Funèbre." Chopin's pained piano keys are converted to sorrowful strings that wonderfully represents the lament of the original composition.
Frowning's Extinct can be pre-ordered through Black Lion Records' Bandcamp page. Frowning can also be found on Facebook. Extinct officially arrives next Friday, make sure to snag a copy of the album now!
