Day: December 3, 2015

New album for the Georgians Ennui, from a few years in the limelight in the doom scene with their sound matrix funeral death doom and of which I had the pleasure and the opportunity to follow the musical journey since the first steps corresponding to the debut album Mze Ukunisa in 2012. At this point in their history, David Unsaved and Serj Shenghelia could no longer hide, as it was legitimate to expect from them an album that not only gave continuity to what they had already done but also guaranteed a decisive and definitive leap in quality. To do this, the two musicians of Tblisi, passed in the meantime from MFL Records of Evander Sinque, who had the great merit of clearing customs, to Solitude Productions, meanwhile, have decided to make use of a third element that is dedicated to the rhythm section and identified, no less than Daniel Neagoe, his majesty the growl and mastermind of Eye Of Solitude, Clouds and involved in a thousand other projects of absolute level (moreover, the musician of Romanian origin has also personally mastered and mixed the album). But David and Serj were not satisfied with the engagement of a name so heavy, indeed: scrolling through the list of guests who have contributed to the success of the disc we find people like Greg Chandler (Esoteric), Don Zaros (Evoken), Sameli Köykkä (Colosseum) and AK iEzor (Abstract Spirit and Comatose Vigil), as if to call to collect, symbolically, the historical names of the scene to provide a sort of imprimatur to the work. This deployment of forces has produced the desired result: Falsvs Anno Domini is the definitive album of Ennui, the one that will allow them to move from the status of excellent futuristic band to that of established reality able to rewrite the history of the genre in the years to come. Compared to the last work, the sound has shifted more towards a death dooom with harsh tones but not without melodic and atmospheric openings: the aura that surrounds the sound of Ennui appears much darker and threatening than in the past, in deference to a lyrical content that does not leave too much hope about the redemption of humanity headed to the inescapable self-destruction, even more moral than material. Forbidden Life opens the album in a rather anomalous way, with a guitar sound that reminds us of The Figurehead of the immortal masterpiece Pornography by The Cure: a case? Perhaps, but there is no doubt that no one better than Smith has predicted, in the early eighties, the beginning of the decay of humanity, telling the discomfort of those who at twenty years old felt a precocious centenarian. The song then opens in a more canonical way, keeping a rather melancholic trend, but it’s with the following The Apostasy that Falsvs Anno Domini finally takes its place, thanks to sounds very close to those of Colosseum of the unforgettable Juhani Palomäki: harsher moments alternate with funereal slowdowns and wide openings where the guitar weaves magnificent and painful melodies. With The Stones Of The Timeless we get to the core of the whole album, where more than fifteen minutes of pure despair are expressed, with a scream that takes the place of the more canonical growl and a final part where, unconsciously or not, Daniel’s entrance in Ennui is felt through a melodic crescendo that is typical Eye Of Solitude’s trademark: all in all, a wonder. After these forty minutes of doom at its highest levels, there are about as many waiting for us, certainly not less for intensity and evocative capabilities, with two other wonderful tracks such as No Home Beneath The Stars, sixteen minutes that fly away between guitar embroidery in an atmosphere, at least initially, a little ‘less tregenda and another final chilling, and the title track, closer in sound to the ex-Soviet school with its dark and solemn tones at the same time: the obsessive closing is to symbolize the annihilation of any vain hope, a sort of reiteration to the nth power of the anger that assails those who are in the presence of a degradation apparently without limits. Ennui, after three years of life and as many full lengths, prove to have what it takes to sit at the table with the greats of the genre: Falsvs Anno Domini is another great album in a musical field that, although dealing mainly with death, is paradoxically more alive than ever, in a anno domini that has seen the return, after years of silence, of giants such as Shape Of Despair and Skepticism, as well as the lesser known Tyranny; the Georgian band shows that the new recruits are already up to the situation and able to feed in the best way a genre capable of providing unique emotions.

2015 – Solitude Productions