Tag Archives: doom metal

MIZMOR – Mnemonic: Ambient Mosaic (Profound Lore)

Posted by John Lithium on

Label Description:

In April of this year, A.L.N. released something new – Alluvion, the Mizmor and Hell collaboration. Now in June, A.L.N. brings you something old… or rather, renewed. Mnemonic: Ambient Mosaic is comprised of ten of A.L.N.’s earliest recordings, transformed into nostalgic drone-scapes. The artist has been making solo music under multiple monikers consistently
since age 13 (ie: The Zarconiac, 2004) and the recordings selected for this record date back almost as far.

“To create Mnemonic, I unearthed a selection of old recordings from both The Zarconiac and my eponymous hymns [2011] and repurposed them into ambient tracks, just like I did with the Mizmor song ‘Pareidolia’ (Wit’s End, 2022). I realized that there were many lamentful melodies in my old songs that I still love, despite the lo-fi quality. The idea was to create a nostalgic soundscape of inverted hymns, allowing the listener to explore the sounds of my past, obscured though they may be.” Drafts of these songs were originally published to Mizmor’s Patreon (currently inactive), one each month of the year 2024. The 12 songs were then edited down into the 10 that comprise this LP.”

About the aforementioned hymns, A.L.N. explains, “In my time as a Christian [2010-2012], I created an EP of original hymns. The life of this project was short and catalogued simply under my given name. I can count the number of people who have heard these songs on one hand. These were worship songs, but not in the traditional sense. These songs were full of melancholy, pleas of help to God. It was from precisely this prayerful place that the first Mizmor album was written not long after, when I lost my faith.”

Mnemonic: Ambient Mosaic releases June 27th on Profound Lore Records in a limited edition of 500 vinyl records and a limited edition of 100 hand-numbered cassettes (independently released by A.L.N.). Digital download and streaming will also be available.

Tribunal – In Penitence and Ruin (20 Buck Spin)

Posted by John Lithium on

Label Description:

Tribunal returns with their sophomore album, ‘In Penitence and Ruin’, an elegy most grievous and forlorn, descending deeper into the solemn abyss of woe. 2023’s debut ‘The Weight of Remembrance’ set a high bar for the Canadians becoming one of the year’s most notable and praised Doom releases, leading Decibel Mag to include the band’s new album in their annual list of most anticipated releases. Tribunal have taken their time and crafted an opus of enormous scope to echo evermore through halls long abandoned.

Conjured by the band’s new form as a fully fleshed out five-piece, ‘In Penitence and Ruin’ has a wider lens of cohesion and maturity weaving together the widow’s wail of doleful strings, chilling keys and percussion that tolls like the iron bell of fate. These elements ornament the monolithic foundation of crushing dirge and funereal melodies hewn from the marrow of sorrow itself. A conceptual piece, the songs form a cycle that ruminates on justice and punishment, centering on a guilty Penitent who cannot escape what they have done. The duality between the wistful, impassioned singing of vocalist / cellist / bassist Soren Mourne and agonized growls from guitarist / vocalist Etienne Flinn bind with resolute tread and stride forth into darkness, traversing a path lit only by the pale glow of distant lament.

Tribunal hath wrought a requiem most dire where beauty and ruin become one and in doing have forged a second album beyond expectations, bold in its exploration of timeless human flaws and eminently listenable as a scripture of loss. Like ivy upon the tombstone, ‘In Penitence And Ruin’ winds slowly but inexorably towards spectral grandeur and eternal oblivion.

credits

released April 18, 2025

Tribunal is:
Soren Mourne – bass, cello, vocals
Etienne Flinn – guitar, vocals
Jessica Yang – guitar
Dallas Alice – keys
Julia Geaman – drums

Additional vocals performed by Rory Say

Produced by Tribunal and Jesse Gander
Drums recorded by Jesse Gander at Rain City Recorders
Mixed by Jesse Gander at Rain City Recorders
Mastered by Greg Chandler at Priory Recording Studios

All music and lyrics written by Tribunal

Cover painting and lettering by Soren Mourne
Layout by Chimere Noire
Photography by Sav Bagshaw

Civerous – Maze Envy (20 Buck Spin)

Posted by John Lithium on

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Label Description:

Upon hearing ‘Decrepit Flesh Relic’, the first album from Civerous, one was left with a feeling of intense suffocating weight and agonal(sic) prostration in the service of bone-breaking death hymns. With the towering new album, ‘Maze Envy’, LA’s most creatively destructive Death / Doom ensemble let loose a freshly evolved but no less brutal conflagration of immersive horror and morbid lamentation.

Where Death / Doom may often stay in safe and unadventerous realms of narrow focus, Maze Envy’ presents a more far-reaching breadth of ambition, where unusual technicality, progressive atmospheres, string flourishes and chaotic mysticism radiate a purple light of the soul’s ascension from the black oceans of dread Civerous inhabit. Chain-dragging dirge, blackened blasting, and the savage ferocity of Lord Foul’s hellish vocal exorcisms exalt ‘Mazy Envy’ with a hellish grandeur within its myriad paths to oblivion.

With a massively crushing sound, ‘Maze Envy’ is end times music for an age in which that reckoning feels unfathomably close. Civerous batter the senses into a state of labyrinthian turmoil from which emergence is ever more implausible.

Editor’s Note: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.