2004-03-24
The true damnation is to be stuck within an on-going loop, a wave of sound, that doesn't change or evolve. Mar De Grises, hailing from Chile, Land of Doom, turned that sound into art. The sheer insanity that goes through this album and its various soundscapes doesn't fall, in my opinion from such doom giants such as Skepticism, that created this sound, built the walls to this voidful damnation, that can wear every shape and temperature it would choose.
The songs are built from grandiose outbursts and minimalistic quiet moments, and ofcourse, crossovers to other genres, done in a masterful, almost Jester-like deliberate manner, but do not take anything away from the current atmosphere, or the depth of the momentary change, that is passed, but felt afar.
The drumming has a certain touch of sensuality, maybe because it gets his own character during many of the quiet moments, and the madness is sensual as well. The guitar parts are both melodic and disharmonic, amazingly beautiful, almost feel locked within the 55'59 minutes of the album.
The vocalist's agonized singing, and the sheer urgency behind it, to pass forward the emotion, desperation, remind me only of such keen spirited madman named Landfermann that did memorable vocals, scarring for life, on the album Bethlehem - Dictius Te Necare, but not the same type of vocals, merely in the pain. His clean vocals do not fall from other singers, and even sounds better at times.
The album's flow is both quick and slow, lacking definition, or the will to be defined, for instance, moments of metalcore in the playing, noise or hopeful riffs. The album is not only slow, not only doom, not only an album. Mar De Grises are genius musicians, and this album is the living-dead monument of it.
Erez Lasman
