Hangsvart is a French musician who certainly does not suffer from compositional sterility: with his funeral doom project Abysmal Growls Of Despair he has already arrived at his sixth full length in about two years, in addition to as many releases between ep and spilt albums. If we add, then, that our keeps alive other one man bands such as Plagueprayer, Catacombs and Hangvart, as well as lend his voice to Ancient Lament and the excellent Arrant Saudade, the term of funeral doom stakanovist we can affix it well. Do not make the mistake, however, to think of a sort of Buckethead of the specific genre: in the case of Hangsvart it is not mere compositional logorrhoea but of an undoubted prolificacy that, for once, does not lead to any dispersion of energy; Between My Dead is a painful and extreme expression of existential distress that leaves no room for melodic leaps or atmospheric openings: the horrible gasp of the transalpine musician is the voice of a mind imprisoned in the deepest abysses of a psyche in an advanced state of decomposition. The work is inevitably tiring in its progression and in-depth knowledge of the subject is a conditio sine qua non for its enjoyment but, given the necessary premises, this is one of the most essential forms of funeral and at the same time orthodox that you can listen to. The drone component alternates with a sound that is constantly folded in on itself, closed in a fetal position; two monstrous tracks, in every sense, such as The End Of Previous Life and The Feast, without neglecting the rest, are enough to make this record a little gem, even in its being opaque and obscured by the caliginous atmosphere in which it was deliberately abandoned. A deadly test, undoubtedly addressed to a few daring, but it is really worth to be carried adrift by the monsters evoked by Hangsvart.
2015 – Satanath Records
Mournful Sounds 