Angmodnes is a funeral death/doom metal band from the Netherlands. "Rot of the Soul" is their full-length debut album, although they did release an EP, "The Weight of Eternity" in 2022. I was a pretty big fan of that EP and have been anxious to see what they could do with a full-length.
What they did is released a very accomplished 55-minute dirge consisting of five heavy and depressing, but enthralling, epic songs. "Rot of Soul" is an apt name for the album. The atmosphere reeks of a complete loss of hope, down to the very rotting of the soul just before it falls away to nothingness.
However, with that being said, the overall style of the album isn't necessarily suffocating, at least not in the traditional sense. The songs play across huge expanses of derelict sonic fields and contain a lot of details and massive moments. In that essence, the songs are free flowing and open as far, as structure goes.
But the music? The vocals? The atmosphere? Down trodden to the core. “Beneath” is immediately soul crushing. The chants and clean vocals are eerie and reaches a chilling zenith when the absolute crushing waves of distortion laden hit like being suffocated with a lead blanket.
The growls are harrowing and among the best I've heard in some time. The lead guitar lays down funeral-like melodies on top, capping another layer upon this pile of lost souls. And how about the clean vocals? Anguished, lost….their own epic poem of tragedy among these sordid musical dirges
The band isn't afraid to lean into their lighter side, though it isn't anymore uplifting, such as the intro to “The Hours.” The piano pulls on the heartstrings, proving clean notes can, in a way, be just as heavy as distorted ones. The riffs are melodic yet dour, a slow moving cascade backed by rock solid drumming and bass The middle portion of the song changes the approach with a thunderous bed of double bass and Gothic laced clean vocals.
The album continues with the piano intros for “Agony of the Sun” but it is somehow even more tragic sounding. The song trades the clean tones for total blackened fucking fury. This section is vicious, monstrous and goes for the throat. The drums and bass bring the pain so hard I thought my headphones were going to collapse.
Around three minutes in, the tempo slows at the advent of a huge growl before clean vocals join the fray as well. This part is one of the best moments on the album….I can't decide if the clean or the growls are better because both are so effective. The later half of the song is a slow crawl through hell with just enough melody to make it memorable even while it hurts.
The final two songs are my favorite on the album. “Stagnant” is the epitome of what makes doom metal so good. It's slow yet heavy, tender yet rough. The vocal delivery is dynamic and stayed in my head for days. As the song progresses, so do the levels of punishment offered. The mid portion of the song offers a total eclipse brought on by death doom that casts a shadow over everything.
The title track is the longest song on the album and it goes for broke. As any good title track should (especially if it ends the album), it is an effective representation of everything the album is about while also standing fully as its own entity.
The song's opening moments are the doomiest doom to ever doom a doom. The low growls sound like the crunching of gravel, the guitars/bass hit slow and hard, letting the notes hang in the air before dropping another slab. The drums hit hard, focused and keeping the song from collapsing on its own weight.
All this slow carnage leads into a cavernous clean section with spoken word vocals. Afterwards, melodic guitars offer a different shade of grey. The last few minutes of the song are the musical equivalent of being pulled through a black hole.
Angmodnes have released a frightening well structured and dark death doom album that is one of the best highlights so far in this still early year.
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