Day: May 16, 2017

The Greeks Decemberance are a band whose first steps date back even to twenty years ago, although, so far, the only full length published was the good Inside, from 2009. The band led by Yiannis Fillipaios (vocals, drums) and Chris Markopoulos (guitar) returns after a long silence with its grim death doom and frequent funeral propensities, nothing to do with the good Immensity, a band with much more melodic tones in which the two play, as well as the other guitarist Nikos Loukopoulos as live; to complete the close connection of Decemberance with the Athenian doom scene it should also be remembered as the rhythm section, formed by the same Fillipaios and Aggelos Malisovas, is the same as the well-known Daylight Misery. Although time passes and modernity often deforms in a decisive way any heritage of the past, Decemberance offer a death doom firmly anchored to the nineties, then the beginnings of the genre, resulting at times pleasantly close to the very first Anathema. So, the harsh growl of the vocalist dominates the scene standing out on the roughness of death doom that are interspersed with acoustic rarefactions and, above all, slowdowns on the border of funeral in which the lead guitar weaves beautiful and painful melodic textures. This faithful adherence to the origins of death doom is manna from heaven for its worshippers, at least for those who still believe that songs like Under The Veil or Lovelorn Rhapsody are among its cornerstones: Decemberance show at every juncture a knowledge of the subject that allows them to stage almost an hour and a quarter of music, divided into four tracks, without its progression is never verbose or redundant. Conceiving Hell offers a dry sound that finds its highest points in the funeral slowdowns of Departures and in the rather iridescent development of the magnificent The Blind Will Lead The Way, but always keeping the level of the remaining tracks high, thanks also to the measured but essential keyboard work of Alexandros Vlahos; the disc moves fluctuating with ease between the asphyxiating death of Morbid Angel of Covenant and the doom of the british triad, with more a pinch of experimental vein that peeps in certain passages, as in the final dominated by the bass of the aforementioned The Blind Will Lead The Way. The work of Decemberance, in my opinion, is also well beyond expectations, because it rewinds the tape bringing us back to the more true death doom, soaked in dull pain and no consolatory melodic outlets; Conceiving Hell to be fully appreciated should be listened to several times, after which it will manifest itself inexorably in all its beauty.

2017 – Endless Winter