Second album for the Russians Mare Infinitum, who follow up their successful debut of 2012, Sea Of Infinity. Already from the opener The Nightmare Corpse-City Of R’lyeh you can see that something has changed in the sound of the band from Moscow: in fact, the orthodox death doom of the beginning is enriched here by a stentorian clean voice, by Ivan Guskov, which is coupled with the usual excellent growl of Andrey Karpukhin (A. K. iEzor – Abstract Spirit and Comatose Vigil, who left the band after the recording of the album), while the atmospheres, just in conjunction with the vocal openings also become more terse, assuming almost epic features. The project is as always led by Georgiy Bykov (Homer), who takes care of all the instrumental part and, undoubtedly, the greater variety given to the death doom sounds denotes an exponential growth of the compositional skills of this musician. The three years between one album and the other have been well spent, judging by the results obtained: Alien Monolith God is, in fact, a truly excellent work in its unraveling between the deadly and cadenced riffs and the sudden and airy melodic openings. The disc is so compelling in every step without sacrificing anything from the point of view of emotional impact and even suffering from a duration that goes to touch the hour. None of the five tracks shows the rope, going to compose an unassailable monolith of sound under the quality aspect; clearly the typical imprint of the Moscow doom scene is always present, as it is normal when you move in an area in which the bands and musicians are quite cohesive and therefore inclined to mutual cooperation. A special mention deserves however the long and changing title track and the evocative closing track The Sun That Harasses My Solitude, a worthy conclusion of an impeccable album that will give sure satisfaction to lovers of the genre.

2015 – Solitude Productions