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PROFETUS
As All Seasons Die

Svart (2014)
Rating: 8/10

As the opening strains of the church organ begins, I feel as though I’m wandering through ashen, crooked tombstones on an autumnal eve, merely accompanied by the dying embers of a rustic October bonfire and a carpet of orange leaves. Yep, Profetus is a doom metal band to conjure such gothic images as they offer four tracks of hazy gloom in the form of their third opus As All Seasons Die.

This latest monolith is the third slab of weight from this Finnish act that has been crushing bones since their 2006 inception. Now, while I can get bored to death by some doom metal – especially that which oozes into sludgier climes – Profetus are one band I can enjoy listening to, however slow or aching they may be.

The man who fronts such a plod is vocalist A. Mäkinen, who is one of three axemen within the band – the others being M. Mäkelä and D. Lowndes respectively. The drums of doom are supplied by V. Kujansuu, but the real atmospherics of this incredible record are provided by organist M. Nieminen, who is a gargantuan force when it comes to lacing the hymns of gloom with that crescendo of woe.

After the opening instrumental strains of ‘The Rebirth Of Sorrow’, the band really pummels with slow intensity as ‘A Reverie (Midsummer’s Dying)’ emerges from the mist like some supernatural force big enough to swallow a cathedral! This is truly epic doom metal that is lumbering for sure, but never does it tire the listener. Instead, in its grandiose nature, it exists like some unknown presence that is so vast, complex and terrifying that it’s something we’d rather not think about until it comes.

The rainy gurgle acts of Mäkinen acts as nothing more than another instrument ascending from the peat bog. The drums refuse to clatter; instead, they just pound, one concrete step at a time, and are only broken up by the organ that heaves and wheezes until three-quarters the way through it is allowed to come into its own. If you’ve ever stood in an immense cathedral and been overawed by its history and architecture, then Profetus is the soundtrack to this experience.

‘Dead Are Our Leaves Of Autumn’ takes me back to that drizzly graveyard of forgotten, cracked gravestones, and that pallid sky. The guitar is merely a fuzzy churn as Mäkinen narrates his prose to a chime of crushing drum and organ hum. Again, it’s a track that heaves more than anything, its purest doom completely bereft of any pace, but every now and then a melancholic guitar worms its way through the damp soil like a snake making its way through bracken. I can smell the leaves that have been caressed by the dew, I can hear the crow perched upon the church spire, and as the bell tolls the 15-minute ooze of ‘The Dire Womb Of Winter’ makes its presence known; a towering, rolling black gluey silt-like substance that engulfs pastures green, and smothers the ears like a blanket.

It’s truly mournful yet never ever depressing as with sullen grace it bends the old oak beams which creak under the strain, and with those eerie moans it’s as if a horde of black spectral monks are spilling from the catacombs and fleeing in terror from the unnameable that is Profetus. This is dooooooomm metal, and I needn’t whisper another word for fear of being suffocated by this leviathan.

Neil Arnold

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