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!
Nestled in Southern Russia lies the funerary entity of The Extinct Dreams. Active since 2006, the trio plays an atmospheric strain of Funeral Doom Metal that can be traced to some of Europe's earliest bands. Throughout its decade in existence, the group has released now three full-length albums as well as a split with Unsaved. The group currently consists of members: Ramapriya Das (vocals/guitars), Selena Silent (bass), and Dmitry Slastenin (drums). In the past, the group has featured as many as five members, but has since whittled it down to the current three that composed the music of their newest album, Fragments of Eternity.
The Extinct Dreams' new album features four songs that eclipse 47 minutes in runtime. Fragments of Eternity infuses both harsh and clean vocals much like Shape of Despair does, or even Skepticism. The instrumentation evokes a feel similar to the most recent Funeral Moth album, Transience, or Canada's Longing For Dawn. "Karma" is the album's longest track at 18 minutes, highlighted by Das's soaring guitar. The album shifts into increasingly shorter songs. Personal favorite, "Damodara Stotra", takes on a darker Death-Doom persona that is dragged through an undertow of bass and drums. The album's final two songs, "In Search of Itself" and the title track continue to carry the album's needle closer to the Death-Doom side of the gauge, but it never loses its feelings of atmosphere or sullenness.
Fragments of Eternity is an exciting piece of Funeral Doom and one of the highlights that the genre has offered so far this year. While a little on the shorter side, relative to other Funeral Doom albums, it still manages to pack many bright moments into its four songs. The Extinct Dreams' third album is easy to digest and an easy album to compliment other noteworthy acts of the Funeral Doom genre. You can check out the band on Facebook as well as name your price for their albums on Bandcamp. Have a great weekend!
