It is long overdue the appearance of someone in USA capable of offering melodic death doom of such a high level as that of the great Daylight Dies; this occurs with the first full length of Mother of Graves, recently formed group that made a name for itself with the remarkable ep In Somber Dreams in 2021, led by the guitarist couple Ben Sandman and Chris Morrison, in whose past there is the common membership of the death band Harakiri. Where the Shadows Adorn is a splendid album, capable of evoking yearning and melancholy from the first to the last note without ever losing its extreme connotations; eight varied, engaging songs full of splendid melodic insights unfold with such fluidity that the album seems even shorter than its three quarters of an hour duration. Mother of Graves, whose moniker is the English transposition of the Latvian mythological figure Kapu māte, make linearity their strong point, as each episode appears devoid of forcing or superfluous dilution of contents: Brandon Howe’s excellent growl, together with the punctual rhythmic base of Corey Clark and Don Curtis, enhance the excellent compositional work of Sandman and Morrison and, as proof of how well the album has been edited in every aspect, it is worth mentioning that Dan Swanö was employed for the mastering and Paolo Girardi for the artwork. Where the Shadows Adorn is an album you fall in love with after only a few listens and is destined to be a candidate to be one of the best releases in the subgenre in 2022.

2022 – Wise Blood Records