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DESCEND INTO DESPAIR
The Bearer Of All Storms

Domestic Genocide (2014)
Rating: 8/10

As you may have guessed from the moniker of this band, Descend Into Despair are not a fun-filled Euro pop act! This is funereal doom metal from Romania, of all places, and it’s a debut record that must be taken note of, such is its dreary, yet poetic quality.

These guys have been roaming around musty graveyards since 2010, and in 2011 released their impressive Vanity Devotion EP to critical acclaim. And now they’ve returned with this gigantic sounding slab of eerie doom metal that makes for an intriguing listen.

Descend Into Despair consists of vocalist / bassist Denis Ungurean and lead guitarist Alex Cozaciuc, who is also responsible for some of the programming, effects and drums. They’re joined by rhythm guitarist Bogdan Florea, who also likes to dabble with the more gothic-sounding vocal anguish, and Florentin Popa, master of the clearer vocals as well as further keyboard indulgence.

Now, first things first, The Bearer Of All Storms is one hefty package that is comprised of two discs, both of which run for over 40 minutes, making this a double album of the truest sense.

The first disc boasts four tracks, the shortest clocking in at just under nine minutes (‘Mirrors Of Flesh’) with the longest (‘Triangle Of Lies’) taking up over a quarter-of-an-hour of your life. The second disc is a tad longer despite featuring just a trio of tracks, but two of these – ‘The Horrific Pale Awakening’ and ‘Plânge Glia De Dorul Meu’ – run for almost 18 minutes effectively.

However, if you have a short attention span please don’t let these running times put you off. Descend Into Despair have created a riveting slab of doom metal, which is the product of four years of toil. The result is one hell of a captivity tome, showcasing ashen guitars, morose groans, oaken drums and sombre reflection.

Fans of real, aching doom metal will find this record the sort of experience to while away the night hours, bringing to mind all manner of bands, ranging from Skepticism to My Dying Bride. Rarely, if at all, do the quartet move beyond slug-like ooze but there is poetry to the motion rather than tedium – the band evoking images of ancient winter forests, esoteric whispers and cold, shimmering passages.

Vocally, the mournful clamour varies from prayer-like narration to guttural growls of anguish. All the while the guitars remain funereal, providing lashings of rain as the drums roll like peels of distant thunder.

Each track on offer exists as more of a soundtrack of sorrow rather than doom metal familiarity. Each segment is a force so esoteric and morose that one refuses to let the sun shine through the curtains as ‘Portrait Of Rust’ teases itself out of its damp lair and bleeds into the sullen moans of ‘Mirrors Of Flesh’, each of them orchestrated by remote echoes, distant yet cavernous guitars and drums which plod suggesting a forthcoming woe.

How does one truly appreciate something so achingly pallid? Although we can get lost in the grey labyrinths of ‘Plânge Glia De Dorul Meu’ and ‘The Embrace Of Earth’, one has to spin such monoliths several times to appreciate the autumnal tone and configurations of distress.

That’s not to say that there is anything abrasive about Descend Into Despair – they instead seem to carve out huge slabs of misery by being deft and subtle as the tracks take shape as often bass-lead trundles of gloom. As the strains of ‘The Horrific Pale Awakening’ drench our ears in sorrow and the lyrics of “Your shrivelling, hypocrite smiles cannot bring the Sun back to life, Light has always been a sweet lie, In the endless nightmare that blinds us”, I’m transported back to those foetid yawns of Esoteric and the likes.

While this is clearly a leviathan of a record daubed in grief, it’s a volume so bloody engrossing that by the time it’s finished the shadows of night have crept ever closer, leaving us with only one option; to spin this moss-covered composition once again and succumb to its labour.

Epic is a word so over-used when it comes to describing albums, but The Bearer Of All Storms is one massive raindrop to which the word epic can easily find itself attached. I hear thunder, I hear thunder…

Neil Arnold

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