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DWELL
Vermin And Ashes

Hells Headbangers (2015)
Rating: 8.5/10

Hip, hip hooray for aural suffocation to the extreme. Dwell is a nasty lil’ Danish doom metal band formed in 2012 and featuring six asylum escapees in the form of Jens Bendtsen Pedersen (vocals), Morten Adsersen (guitar), Allan Brejner Larsen (guitar / bass), Quentin Nicollet (bass), Andreas Joen (drums) and Kenneth Holme (keyboards).

I do like a bit of heavy, pasty doom metal, and while the scene seems to be becoming bogged down with similar sounding bands, I do appreciate what Dwell offers on this debut six-track full-length album.

For the most part, this is pretty slow but extremely guttural doom metal bordering on fusty, funereal doom metal. The vocals are pretty much delivered from the depths of the belly, but there’s also a slight variation as occasional dismissive and mocking yelps also run through the mire of laboured gloom.

The keyboards are also a nice touch because they are far from being dominant and exist as a mere lacing of the darkness to the extent of supplying a cosmic, atmospheric edge immediately apparent with the opening slog of ‘A Collapse Sublime’ which comes with added melancholic leads that sullenly and sporadically drift throughout.

‘Pathless And Dormant’ is even more atmospheric, initially present as a strange sort of dissonant and unnerving bulbous throb which can only hint at the further horrors to come. Strangely though, they never do – well, not within this track except by way of a weird fog-horn styled fuzz evoking images of some ghost ship drifting on fog-shrouded waters and those whispering vocal flecks.

After this rather eerie glimpse into another misty void we have to tread ever so carefully with the ruinous chunk that is ‘Vermin In My Arteries’; a true behemoth of a track that dismisses quagmire slowness for want of deathly speed injected with a sort of Gothic, musty gallop. Dwell conjures up such a dark and suffocating sound as the vocals suggest a soul writhing in utmost agony to come to terms with those spiralling solos which seem to attack from the blackest corners, while the drum plod can only signify an impending dread. This is a superb doomy death experience that instils such fear throughout and never does it become a chore to listen to.

The tracks offered all come in at just the right length, with only the closing ‘Perdition’s Mire’ giving any sense of the eerily epic at over eight minutes, but each smouldering soundtrack comes as a black wave of misery and foreboding, driven by that constant percussive chime and Jens Bendtsen Pedersen’s non-intrusive moans of despondency.

The press release for this opus prompts you to “Hear the beginning of greatness with Vermin And Ashes”, but is quick to warn also that you “jump on the Dwell bandwagon before it’s too late”. And I too suggest you hop on board this ghoulish manifestation; otherwise, such a drifting apparition of doom may just engulf you when it passes by your window tonight. For a perfect mix of gungy death metal and evil doom metal, then look no further than Dwell.

Neil Arnold

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