Mourning Dawn is an extreme doom metal band who formed in 2092. “The Foam of Despair” is their sixth full length album but they have also released two demos, two EPs, and two splits.
2022 and 2023 were both exceptional years for the doom genre and any reservations of 2024 offering a trifecta of perfection have been laid to rest because “The Foam of Despair,” is starting the genre off a masterful high note.
“The Foam of Despair” is an exceptionally well crafted album. It has the strong hallmarks of black metal and doom but it doesn’t sound like anything else that is out right now. As of the time of this writing, this is my most played album and for good reason.
The atmosphere is truly special, highlighted by the stellar production and mixing from Déhà which lets every detail shine through. The album sounds very exciting and fresh, even after many, many listens.
The band welcomes non-traditional elements and makes them work even if they normally wouldn’t for most other bands. The saxophone on “Tomber du temps” is surprisingly stunning—I absolutely cannot stand the sax. But on this song? Can’t imagine anything else working better.
Industrial elements, especially on “Suzerain” are another element that I normally don’t have much use for but, again……"The Foam of Despair” is an album that is so together that whatever it pulls into it, becomes a formidable and necessary component.
It isn’t a fast or aggressive album, at least not in the conventional sense. But each song presents the type of heaviness that is arresting, desperate, and hopeless.
The vocals are clawing, dying shrieks of blackened pain that reach out for the final pieces of what was once whole. It’s very much a stark, dark album that is incredibly dense but it’s also open, expansive, and cold as ice.
The guitar tone is absolutely nasty. It is dense yet razor sharp and truly mixes doom and black metal together. The bass and drums together are as heavy as most other bands’ full albums.
“Blue Pain” showcases some of the album's more melodic moments and, sometimes, the music hints at catchy, rock and roll tempos born from an 80s Gothic sound.
The chorus is catchy too, another surprise on an album that clearly has zero issue in taking ideas, throwing them together, then making them even better out the other side.
One of the highlights is the eleven minute epic, “Borrowed Skin.” The beginning is made up of drumming that manages to be atmospheric and keys that match their quality as the song moves towards the sinister explosion at the 2:20 mark, complete with desperate and weighty vocals.
The middle segment of the song features an ambient bridge that reaches across the empty space, grabbing onto the rolling waters of the intense later half. The song ends with lead guitar and the rumbling of drums, making the song slightly melodic but wholly chaotic.
The album ends with “Midnight Sun,’ which brings back more of the industrial flavor of the band’s sound. Mixed with doom, it comes off as cold and mechanical, a special sort of unrelenting finality.
Once again, these are sounds that I never thought would mix together in a positive way, but Mourning Dawn has written “The Foam of Despair” to be an album that embraces a lot of elements while making them their own.
No comments:
Post a Comment