Graveyard Of Souls are a band active since the beginning of the decade and with a good number of full length albums behind them. This time Angel Chicote decides to do it all by himself, renouncing to the usual contribution of vocalist Raul Weaver, who has always been present in previous works: the result is an entirely instrumental album as Mental Landscapes, whose release follows by about six months that of the previous Pequeños Fragmentos De Tiempo Congelado. This choice inevitably affects the development of the sound, which loses on the way the roughness of death doom, not only for the absence of the growl, moving towards more airy sounds and good melodic impact: the result is a work certainly pleasant, in many ways more successful than its predecessors from the more canonical configuration, even if the fully instrumental solution ends up favoring a certain repetitiveness. On the other hand, talking about Pequeños Fragmentos De Tiempo Congelado I was pointing out the fact that in my opinion Graveyard Of Souls offered the best in the melodic parts, while most of the doubts arose when the duo went towards more robust or rhythmic sounds: in fact, with this configuration the album is softer and smoother, showing some really beautiful tracks (among all, the enthralling Eclipse). Having been given the opportunity to listen to Graveyard of Souls in another guise, one can’t help but appreciate this latest incarnation, even if the ideal solution, in the future, could be to continue along this line by returning to include vocals, perhaps modulating them with respect to a less extreme musical expression. Chicote proves to be a respectable musician and this makes a record that could represent, in some way, a turning point for Graveyard Of Souls, until now honest but not first-rate interpreters of death doom.

2017 – Endless Winter