Profetus' As All Seasons Die

...To Open The Passages in Dusk, for some reason or another, never grabbed my attention. I've got a copy of it on vinyl but I've never taken it out of the sleeve to put on the table. My listening time is valuable, and I don't like to spin records that don't affect me emotionally/psychologically, and that one just never did.  

It's a bummer because there's, in my opinion, not enough funeral doom to be heard, and when a band records funeral doom of Profetus' variety, with high production value, it's really a shame when it's monotonous (and no, not all funeral doom is monotonous, believe it or not).  Thankfully we have Mournful Congregation, Skepticism and Ahab to turn to when pickings get slim.  But it's still nice to get a different artist in the mix every once in a while.  Like Loss in 2011. And like Profetus in 2014.   

As All Seasons Die is an improvement over ...To Open the Passages in Dusk. It's the third full length from the funeral doom outfit from Tampere, Finland, where the snow lasts from late November to early April.  It's not nearly as lengthy.  It's thirty-six minutes instead of fifty-eight, so it doesn't drag on as long, and it feels like it's more crafted.  

Profetus' music is heavy, plodding and burdensome, but it's not of the impenetrable wall of sound variety like Evoken or The Call of the Wretched Sea/The Divinity of Oceans-era Ahab.  Profetus' music, while certainly heavy, has a rather serene aspect to it that isn't found in most doom metal.  It's mesmeric and immersive.  The listener is swept away in it and carried off to some far away place that isn't exactly inviting, nor uninviting, but arcane.  Most funeral doom is just doleful and depressing.  Profetus' is not.  It's more mysterious and introspective.  Forlorn, perhaps, and somber, but not 'I want to go kill myself' depressing.     

"The Rebirth of Sorrow," "Dead Are Our Leaves of Autumn" and the last five minutes of "The Dire Womb of Winter" are particularly mysterious and at times damn near spellbinding.  The solo in "Dead Are Our Leaves of Autumn" is very Mournful Congregation-esque (it reminds me a lot of the solo in "The Waterless Streams").  The spoken word chants add to the mystique.  I must say, I like the sparseness of death growls.  They're fine where they are, but the spoken vocals better compliment the album's atmosphere. 
      


 
This isn't an immaculate album, but parts of it are definitely worth listening to.  There is a chance it could win Best Funeral Doom Album of 2014, but it will have to beat out Concrescence of the Sophia and Skepticism's and Aldebaran's upcoming albums.  It's so rare for a funeral doom album to remain captivating throughout its entirety.  We have to select the parts we like and return to them over and over.  And I'm completely content doing this because the parts worth returning to are so, so good.

  

Ordog's Remorse

In Hungarian mythology, Ördög is a demonic creature that personifies the dark and evil aspects of the world, much like what Satan personifies in the Christian world. And that's definitely what Ordog (the band) tries to personify with their music. Ordog's biggest influence is life itself, as insignificant as it is. Aleksi Martikainen, Ordog's lead vocalist, said "my biggest influences are my own dark and twisted mind, and memories full of distress and misfortune." I think its safe to say misanthropy plays a critical role in Ordog's songwriting process, and is an integral part of their music.

Ordog hails from Finland - a cesspool for awesome music.

This is Ordog's third release. Crow and the Storm in 2006, and Life is too Short for Learning to Live in 2008 are its two predecessors. This is by far their longest release to date; at one hour and nine minutes in length, it beats their next longest release by twenty-three minutes.

In 2011 Mournful Congregation's The Book Of Kings had its brilliant moments, but overall I couldn't help dreading the enormous assemblies that laid before me, especially the title track. Ordog's Remorse doesn't have that problem, even though it's an enormous assembly itself, and because there's not that feeling of dread I feel it's a better album as a whole. There are a few select parts of The Book of Kings that will just knock you dead, but there was also a lot of "meh" on it as well. This record, while still containing a certain amount of "meh" (as almost any doom record will), is chock-full of deep riffs and rich atmosphere. There are many more minutes of material I'll be listening to over and over in the future on this record. It would certainly be out of place to call this symphonic doom, but there are keyboards and pianos present. Keyboards appear on "Shadowland" and "Boneyard Horizon" (which have two of the most memorable keyboard parts), not to play any prominent melody or anything, but to just put a floor on the atmosphere. A memorable piano part is played on "Betrayed," throughout the last half of the song. These things are never the sole focus of attention, or even the primary focus of attention, but they add a really nice, uncommon, layer to Ordog's doom. Contrasted with the slow, heavy riffing, it makes for some really emotional doom in a really unusual way.

The eerie keyboards and the hellish atmosphere will cause listeners to lose grasp on the world around them and drift into a much darker place. "Boneyard Horizon" embodies absolute loss of hope and positivity. The weight of pain, suffering, depression, and remorse seeps into the psyche and leaves the listener devoid of anything that might have once been uplifting.

"Meant to be an End" provides some relief with its soft melodies and brief piano passages, but only for 2:57 before it fades out and brings an end to this seventy minute pillar of remorse and despair. 
 

Originally written for my 2011 End-of-Year List on MetalSetLists.com and as a review for Sputnik Music:
http://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/52150/Ordog-Remorse/