Sunset Forsaken - Novembryonal Echoes

Sunset Forsaken is a melodic death/doom project from Ukraine, formed in 2018. It is a one-man band, the musician behind it being Andriy Tolok, the very same musician from the black metal project Haissem. 

“Novembryonal Echoes,” is the project's third full-length album.  I reviewed the previous album, “85 Nerves,” and found it to be a solid album that represented melodic/death doom well. However, I think with “Novembryonal Echoes,” Tolok has found his footing for this style.

The production this time around is much more vibrant–the melodies and hormones stick out more.  The riffs and rhythm section have a lot more weight to it.  This album’s sound is exactly how melodic death/doom should sound—heavy but not so much the melodies didn’t grab my ears. 

Musically, the five songs have a lot of depth to them and will require multiple listens.  I don’t see that to mean the music is complicated but, rather, there are a lot of details in these songs that I didn’t catch the first time around.  Thankfully, the music is so well written that I wanted to  listen to it again and again, regardless.

I do get a more of a blackened vibe throughout the album too, especially in the vocals.  I think the approach works pretty well and lends the songs a bit more bite this time around.

A lot of the guitar work is absolutely fantastic. The opening lead guitar melodies on “Echo I - Viral Sorrow” are catchy as hell and have an unique contrast against the low doom riffs.  The way this song, and the album as a whole, unfurls is surprisingly smooth so the long song structures pass through with ease.  My favorite part of the song is a huge blackened scream that leads into a sorrowful dirge that would bring a grown man to tears.  The passage is just funeral enough to pull on the heart strings but catchy enough that I was banging my head through the tears. 

"Echo II - Suspiria De Profundis" is eleven minutes long and it is epic all the way through.  The bass slaps and is the star of the song.  The drums compliment the song well and together with the bass, a strong foundation exists throughout for the often gorgeous melodies to do their thing.  The rhythm guitar is dense, keeping the song firmly on the heavier side even with everything else going on.  Tolok’s vocals are haunting but just gritty enough for a blackened death rasp that adds a lot of energy to the music. 

“Echo III - Thrones of Woe/Slow Motion Sadness” is one of my favorite songs on the album.  The bass is very oppressive but the clean guitar in the opening falls like drops in the rain, wetting the landscape but doing nothing to abate what is to come.  The vocals seem to play off the guitar, an exciting combo that pushes the song ever forward. The atmosphere grows dense in the song’s mid section as the double bass adds a rumble of destructiveness that both drives against and compliments the melodies.  The last few minutes of the song meld beauty and numbing sorrow together as melancholic tapestries. 

“Echo IV - Molten In Endless Oblivion,” begins with a very moving acoustic/clean intro that fits in just fine with the doom that follows.  The vocal patterns are clever, making this song the one that was stuck in my head the most. I love how the melodies keep rising along side the extreme screams.  It all breaks against a flurry of drums and around the 4:22 mark the song changes to slow and menacing.  It builds back up nicely as the double bass pushes the melodies against the grain of the vocals until the song ends in a brief but beautiful acoustic moment that leads into a stupendous guitar solo. 

The last song, “Echo V - Forsaken Till Eschaton,” is more direct—by the time the minute and a half mark passes, the song is massive and oppressive.  As the five minute mark approaches, clean spoken word pushes through the dense forest of doom and it is a nice little touch.  From the 7:40 mark to the end, the drums and bass uptick the tempo and aggression.

“Novembryonal Echoes,” is one of my favorite albums that Andriy has been a part of and a sterling example of how doom can be beautiful and moving while still being gripping and downtrodden.