Candelabra alight, we descend the spiral stone stairway and enter the cellar crypt. The rows of recently deceased lay upon beds of stone, their lifeless bodies veiled in black linen. Take a final opportunity to express your valediction towards these poor souls. Slowly, the growing vibrations of a new grieving Dromos record begin to reverberate around the cavernous chamber. We are presented here with the debut full-length studio album from this Funeral Doom Metal quartet, hailing from the ancient English capital city of London. Formed in 2019, it was not until five years later that the band would release their self-titled debut EP, a release which featured a gothic tonality, loud thick and fuzzed-out guitar tones, and a duality of mournful clean singing and ghostly, blackened dirty vocals. The release was a two track affair that hinted that the outfit was expressing some clear potential. Now, the Dromos funeral procession is in full forward march for the release of this first album offering.
The album features three expansive pieces, tracks one and two run at a length of twelve and thirteen minutes’ each, whilst the closing third song is a twenty-minute spiritual juggernaut. ‘My Final Tomb’ announces the arrival of this mourning metallic release with its massive sustained guitar notes. Pre-amplifier distortion and ringing feedback fill the space between picked notes with incredible anticipatory heft. The drums tap away in a virtually gentle manner, whilst vocalist Sami (also of Final Dose, ex Mutagenic Host) belts a range of suffering growls like the ghost of a prisoner calling out from within a subterranean castle dungeon. Compositionally, the song’s seemingly unpredictable progression helps to maintain my interest throughout. Whilst the track doesn’t necessarily feel like the most overtly unique or distinctive piece of Funeral Doom that I’ve heard in recent times, it is a gripping listen nonetheless.
‘Death is Silence’ arrives next in the tracklist, the song’s opening guitar motif hints towards something emotionally charged, but this time, it is slightly less gloomy. The initial movement of the track features a more conventional approach to rhythm, and the choice of guitar notes feels more deliberately linear. I quite like how this influences the atmosphere of the record compared to the first track, it adds a sprinkling of tonal variety (a lack of which is often the death knell for the musical quality of many lesser Funeral Doom records). At certain moments, Sami’s clean singing has vague hints of a Paul Banks-esque timbre, and at others, his tone reminds me of the throaty gothic crooning of Peter Steele. I love the tender acoustic strumming that appears towards the song’s finale and how the band and the vocals gesture toward something of an emotional resolution. ‘Shrinking Horizon’ is the album’s final twenty minute funereal megalith. Some cleaner guitars announce the track before the distorted instrumentation roars out in a simple pattern like some sort of dark weeping anthem. The mood of this final cut drifts back towards more morbid, despondent territory. Of particular note is the track’s hushed mid-section, during the beginning of which Sami’s lyrics are carefully layered to generate something akin to a schizoid rambling in deep conversation with himself. As this movement progresses, a few subdued organ notes wince out over the gradually invigorating instrumental volume. The song’s final minutes indulge in a section of shadowy ambient droning and a last, highly simplistic lead guitar motif to end the record’s black-clad procession.
Dromos has debuted with a good Funeral Doom album. Whilst I don’t exactly see the band’s use of atmosphere or even their compositional approach as anything all that unique, I’m still curious to see what else the band has to offer. I do very much enjoy the general implementation of the guitar tones and feedback sounds, although the instrument’s melodic parts on the record often seem somewhat half-baked and even occasionally aimless. It seems to me that Dromos are at their most interesting when the band is indulging in the more gothic leaning tones of their sound pallette. I believe that if the band doubles down on this particular aspect of their musical substance, then a future release may bring with it a much more identifiable distinction. That said, there is still replay value in this release, and for its merits, I recommend this album to fans of Skepticism, Thergothon, and Evoken.
