Inborn Suffering – Pale Grey Monochrome

By Doom_et_Al

As a picky young tot, my favorite meal was “Mount Mashed Potato.” Ostensibly an uninspired lump of mash on the outside, probing with a spoon soon revealed surprising chambers of peas, hidden anterooms of carrots, and lurking chasms of warm gravy, which bubbled over when released from their confinement. Tiny Doom was delighted, and more importantly, it made a meal that I would ordinarily have considered fairly bland into something exciting and tasty. It also taught me that sometimes, solid ingredients and well-prepared food aren’t enough for the fussy; you need excitement and unpredictability. So how does this all relate to a doom metal band circa 2025?

Inborn Suffering are a French outfit who have been knocking around since 2002. Like the author Donna Tartt, they release an album every decade and then go quiet. Their latest, Pale Grey Monochrome follows 2006’s Wordless Hope and 2012’s Regression to Nothingness. For those unfamiliar with obscure French doom, Inborn Suffering play a form of mournful, melodic, sadboi metal that straddles the line between doom and funeral doom. Think Second to Sun, or Shape of Despair after a Red Bull. Pale Grey Monochrome sticks to the recipe, offering up nearly an hour of gorgeous, melodic death doom to complement the dog days of the Northern Hemisphere Winter. Yet in sticking to the tried-and-tested so resolutely, excitement and originality have been lost.

The biggest issue with Pale Grey Monochrome is that, while the ingredients are solid, and the preparation absolutely fine, there isn’t much that is surprising or unique about the material. Considering how absolutely bonkers and avant-garde some French metal bands are, this is surprising. Inborn Suffering keep things entirely safe for the entire album. “From Lowering Tides” shimmers and shines with gorgeous melodies… that don’t go anywhere unpredictable. The chords rise and fall like the tides, and the pacing of the song is logical, but nothing truly stands out. This pattern is repeated throughout Pale Grey Monochrome. The title track plods along in a very listenable fashion, but lacks the hooks to embed itself into the heart.

Some readers might be thinking, “But this is how funeral melodic doom works. One doesn’t expect fireworks and dramatic changes. The music is, by definition, ponderous and slow.” And that would be fair. But the best melodic death-doom bands find some way to differentiate themselves, whether it’s through experimentation (Atramentum, Esoteric), sheer melodicism (Shape of Despair), or epic vision and scope (Bell Witch). Inborn Suffering, unfortunately, lacks anything that sets it apart. This is a pity because, in addition to the spelling of the album, there is much that the band absolutely nails. The aesthetic is spot-on: from the opening chords of “Wounding,” the material sounds sad but inviting at the same time. It’s like putting on a warm cloak in a snowstorm. Inborn Suffering also have an innate sense of pacing, and the songs all flow and coalesce logically and meaningfully. When the highs hit (The climax of “Tales From an Empty Shell,” the dissonant middle section of “The Oak”), they feel earned. Listening to Pale Grey Monochrome is never a chore, helped by a generous mix that allows the material to breathe, and the hour passes easily. It’s a testament when so much of funeral doom feels like a drag.

Pale Grey Monochrome is a very solid album with much to admire but very little to set it apart. Your enjoyment of it will vary depending on how much you value originality and surprise. In other words, Inborn Suffering have offered a hearty meal, with good quality ingredients. But this is plain ole mash and ‘taters, like you’ve had a hundred times before. If the band chooses not to wait another decade for the next album, I can provide them with a blueprint of what to do next in the form of mum’s “Mount Mashed Potato.”

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 14 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Ardua Music
Websites: inbornsuffering.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/inbornsufferingdoom/
Releases Worldwide: February 7th, 2025

#2025 #30 #ArduaMusic #BellWitch #DoomMetal #Feb25 #FrenchMetal #FuneralDoomMetal #InbornSuffering #Review #Reviews #SecondToSun #ShapeOfDespair

Ataraxie – Le Déclin Review

By Dear Hollow

Once again, as reflected in the French act’s fifth full-length, Ataraxie channels an existential crisis. Le Déclin is not just a soundtrack of its inspiration source (Ahab, Tyranny) or a dark meditation on devastation (Evoken, Bell Witch), it’s something more profound. Throughout its miasmic movements and stark artwork, I am called back to Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman’s opus magnum, the 1957 film The Seventh Seal, a knight’s struggle through the days of Black Plague allegorized as a chess game between himself and Death. Likewise, Le Déclin continues its predecessor’s bleak and tormented commentary on the “manipulation and obfuscation of the Masses, the cult of selfishness, dehumanization towards a parasiting [sic] virtual life, [and] global warming insolubility.” Through the lens of modern global anxiety and medieval self-flagellation, Ataraxie revels in the human torment beneath it all.

Ataraxie, while not always unique in its viscous approach to punishing death/doom, has always been far more guitar-forward, forgoing the atmospheric bells and whistles of genre stalwarts. The first full-length Slow Transcending Agony expertly balanced the weight and tempo of funeral doom with the riffs and punishment of death metal in a unique breed that maintained a unique simmering energy. However, it wasn’t until the very well-received L’Etre et la Nausée and R​é​sign​é​s that this fusion was successfully streamlined into a more palatable expression that balances tradition with punishment. Featuring three guitarists,1 more sophisticated arrangements, and penchant for melancholy and desperation alike, the minimalist emphasis remains as punishing as ever. Although Le Déclin somewhat lacks the memorability of Ataraxie’s magnum opera, four lengthy compositions complete with earthshaking thunder and melodies like the tolling of death knells nonetheless collide to create one of the best doom albums of the year. It is Ataraxie, after all.

While the overwhelm of traditional funeral doom acts like Thergothon or Esoteric is certainly intact, that weight is powerfully balanced out by the death metal guitar influence of diSEMBOWELMENT or Winter. Slow growths across mammoth sixteen to twenty-two-minute runtimes give way to glorious eruptions of crushing heaviness and haunting melodies, punctuated by patient lulls. While the lack of ambiance can be seen as a detriment in the barren no man’s land of funeral doom, Ataraxie does a fantastic job of weaponizing dynamics and more traditional death metal motifs, such as blazing tremolo and blast beats (“Vomisseurs De Vide,” “Glory of Ignominy”), chunky climactic riffs, and pulsing undercurrents of energetic percussion (“Glory of Ignominy,” “The Collapse”). While adding to the muscularity of the already colossal album, bassist/vocalist Jonathan Théry’s charismatic and haunting shrieks, shouts, and roars add to the madness, keenly aligned with desperation and fury. Le Déclin is mixed nearly perfectly, Ataraxie’s weight and gloom felt through every movement, crushing down like the empty sky.

Most impressive about Ataraxie is its ability to balance sloth, melancholy, and aggression organically, without losing its conviction to starkness—and only with the bare bones of its triple-guitar attack. Because of this, the heavy-handed melo-drama of acts like Saturnus or Novembers Doom is absent in favor of desolation, reflected in elements like effective spoken word (“Vomisseurs de Vide”) and the dynamic motifs scattered throughout. The weaponized layered plucking or strumming may sound too hammy or heartfelt on paper, but when it sounds like tolling bells (“Le Déclin”) or progressions completely devoid of hope (“Vomisseurs de Vide,” “Glory of Ignominy”), the weight of every empty note feels just as devastating as the colossal funeral doom sprawls. Closer “The Collapse” streamlines the heft and barrenness seamlessly, its first act a steady crescendo that explodes into an outright death metal assault, its second act a blastbeat-infected climax into outright despair—Ataraxie’s nearly perfect dichotomy of beautiful and punishing.

The opening title track feels slightly less memorable than its successive three cuts, due to its more straightforward rhythm, but this criticism is trivial compared to the absolute sonic and existential devastation coursing through Ataraxie’s signature sound. Attention never sways across its hour-and-fifteen-minute length, with expertly composed lulls and crescendos guiding its movements. Cutting to the bone of funeral doom with the jagged blade of death metal, it dispenses with the frivolities and atmospherics for an album that is bleak and tormented to its very core – a chess game with Death in all its desperate victories and devastating losses. It’s the soundtrack of the crushed human spirit.

Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Ardua Music | Weird Truth Productions
Websites: ataraxie.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/ataraxiedoom
Releases Worldwide: October 25th, 2024

#2024 #40 #Ahab #ArduaMusic #Ataraxie #BellWitch #DeathMetal #DeathDoomMetal #diSEMBOWELMENT #DoomMetal #Esoteric #Evoken #FrenchMetal #FuneralDoomMetal #LeDéclin #Oct24 #Review #Reviews #Thergothon #Tyranny #WeirdTruthProductions #Winter

Föhn – Condescending Review

By Steel Druhm

2024 hasn’t been the greatest year for doom thus far save for Crypt Sermon’s massive missive. I find myself largely swimming in the death and trad swamps, but I crave big, molar-rattling doom to round out my unhealthy listening regime. Fortunately, Greek funeral doom act Föhn have arrived to help with their mammoth debut Condescending. Borrowing from acts like Esoteric and Ataraxie, Föhn deliver monolithic long-form compositions of lumbering grimness with enough sheer mass to crush a steel factory. But rather than merely recycle the same old sounds, the band adds their own unique flair by incorporating manic, unhinged saxophone blasts that sound like they escaped from a Sigh album only to get locked in the Gimp Box in Imperial Triumphant’s sax dungeon. There are plenty of the expected doom tropes present, but the dark jazz element provides interesting textures, sometimes nightmarish, other times soothing, and always atmospheric. The result is an album that feels familiar yet alien enough to intrigue and keep you anxiously awaiting further developments.

In a show of ball-cocky bravado, Condescending opens with the nearly 14-minute “Bereft,” and trust me when I tell you that you’ll remember your time spent with this rampaging beast. This is gargantuan doom designed to convey a sense of existential dread, and it does so with crushing, abrasive riffs that show no mercy. Running over the top of the guitar are schizophrenic sax lines that scream and caterwaul like demons from the Ninth Level of Hell. It makes for an unsettling soundscape but as the song lurches forward, the traditional doom idioms gain prominence, and earth-shaking death roars guide you deeper into the void. Subtle melodic interludes break up the death march here and there and eventually, the sax returns to provide a melancholic and poignant counterpart to the 50-ton riffs. It’s all highly effective and emotionally evocative. This may well be the Doom Song o’ the Year. Not to be outdone easily, “A Day After” opens with ominous ambient droning and the sounds of children playing, creating cognitive dissonance and a sense of dread before the riffs arrive to oppress you with suffocating mass. Subdued, minimalist melodic strumming provides a brief respite from the monolithic riffs and cavernous, reverb-heavy death roars, and though it’s very much the classic funeral doom sound and style, Föhn execute it very well without relying on the wild card saxophone for texture this time. It’s just you and them in a dank, dark space for 13-plus minutes and it will damage your calm.

17-minute mega-closer “Persona” uses harrowing soundbites of a woman discussing the nightmarish underworld of drug addiction and sex trafficking, overlaid with sounds of women crying and screaming, undergirded with guitar lines that remind me of Headshrinker’s massive Callous Indifference. To say it’s impactful damns it with faint praise. Later, the sax returns to add noir-esque atmosphere, forlorn and downtrodden. While Condescending is intensely gripping, it’s a lot to digest in one sitting at a portly 57-plus minutes. It’s easy to get drawn into the world Föhn creates and lose track of time, but there’s ample room for trimming and tightening. “The Weight of Nothing” is good and more urgent than its brethren, but it doesn’t contain enough inspiration to cover all its 12-plus minutes. Whacking a few minutes off the closer would be helpful too. Excess padding aside, I can’t say enough about the mixing/mastering courtesy of Greg Chandler of Esoteric. The sound is deep and vibrant with the heavy riffs feeling so damn massive and the drums feeling warm and organic. This thing sounds great as it pushes you toward a psychotic break.

Georgios Schoinianakis handles guitar and drums and does an impressive job with both. His riffing is powerful and punishing, using dissonance as a cudgel. His minimalist melodic flourishes play good cop here, allowing faint rays of light in this vast ocean of darkness and despair. New Ocean of Grief vocalist Nicos Vlachakis delivers a monumental performance with thunderous death roars and growls that feel primal and foundational. He’s used somewhat sparingly but he electrifies the material with his sub-basement doom booming. The saxophonist responsible for so much of the atmosphere and raw emotion is uncredited, which is a damn shame. The playing on “Bereft” is simply awe-inspiring and deserves accolades.1 To the band’s credit, the sax element isn’t overused or made gimmicky. It’s there when needed and packs a punch way above its weight.

Condescending is a highly accomplished debut taking classic funeral doom templates and adding just enough innovation to stand out. It flirts with greatness and great moments are indeed present, but bloat and the occasional underdeveloped idea deprive Föhn of a higher score. Get ears on this and feel the pain of human existence

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Hypaethral Records
Websites: bandcamp.com/album/condescending | facebook.com/foehnofficial
Releases Worldwide: August 23rd, 2024

#2024 #35 #Ataraxie #Aug23 #Condescending #DroneMetal #Esoteric #Föhn #FuneralDoom #FuneralDoomMetal #GreekMetal #HypaethralRecords #Review #Reviews #Sigh #Swans