Spain is known for a lot of things; its history, its culture, its cuisine and even to some extent it has a respectable death and black metal scene. But I’m not sure sunny Spain is the country people thing of when it comes to despondent, depressive doom/death metal. Well, once again Canada’s Hypnotic Dirge (arguably the most aptly named label out there), is here to help, and has re released the 2015 digital debut from Seville’s Womb on CD.
Culling very heavily from the Scandinavian and British doom scene of yore, Womb has a distinctly Finnish sound; long songs with crunchy guitars, super deep growls and layers of rending melodies over patient, plodding riffs and a light gloss of pianos and cellos. It’s a perfect rendition of the style and one that I always enjoy, and I get a bit of a Pantheist vibe, but those that enjoyed last years My Dying Bride effort and Shape of Despair’s return, should definitely check this out.
Opener “Echoes of Our Scars” pretty well capture’s the band’s sullen mope perfectly with a delicate piano tinkle amid some lethargic crumbling and a little acoustic break and mood shift about 5 minutes in that’s very well done. “Ends” and closer “Forgotten By her Bliss” ( the band is dialed into the depressive theme as well as the sound as you can see from the song titles) all deliver some top notch, really despondent melodies that compete with anything from their peers as far as getting you right in the feels. But it’s not a complete drone fest as third track, “March” even has a more uptempo, but still rending burst and “Equisdistant” adds a bit of a mid paced chug towards it climax.
I’m not sure if Deception Through Your Lies is an EP or a short (for a doom album) album, but with 5 songs and on 35 minutes it goes by fast for a doom record with no super long songs, wasted moments or drawn out atmospherics, instead choosing wisely to go straight for the wilting riffs. The atmospheric moments are short and sweet by way of either a piano, under started clean female vocals (“March”) or short acoustic bridge. So in all an pretty damn solid example for the genre, and one I look forward to hearing more off.
