Empire Drowns are a Danish band formed at the beginning of last decade and who, after two EPs in 2011 and 2013, are back with a first full length entitled Nothing. The musicians involved are active in the Danish death doom scene and, in fact, we find two members of those A Sun Traverse, Michael H. Andersen (vocals) and Anders Ro Nielsen (keyboards), the latter of whom was in the Saturnus line-up that recorded the epochal Veronika Decides to Die, of whom there has been no news since their promising debut ep a few years ago; in addition to them, the other two founders of Empire Drowns, Kim Jørgensen (drums) and Thomas Birk (guitar), are joined by Marco Angioni (bass), a Sardinian musician with a past in the notable Chaoswave and for some time now also active in Denmark with his own recording studios. The result of this union of forces is a concise work, with its scant half-hour duration, but full of interesting ideas scattered throughout the tracks, in which a certain balance between the rougher parts and the melodic ones is highlighted. The whole thing flows very well and, contrary to what one might have expected, deviates sufficiently from the sound of A Sun Traverse and, consequently, from that of Saturnus due to an approach with more intense rhythms without betraying the death doom matrix. The deceptive intro I Am, whose atmospheric drama touches on territories not far from Monolithe, is followed by four main tracks, including the notable Purity (with strong gothic overtones) and Gone, before the electronic impulses of the outro Loved close a work that is a little stingy in terms of quantity, but certainly impeccable in terms of quality, and therefore recommended without hesitation to fans of the subgenre.

2022 – Uprising! Records