Abyssal Liturgy - Lamentations of the Desolate

Abyssal Liturgy is a one-man funeral doom metal band from the prolific musician Gregory Ritchey, notably from his other funeral doom project Silent Deep Ocean—he also has a lot of self-titled albums as well. “Lamentations of the Desolate,” is the project’s debut full-length album. 

“Lamentations of the Desolate,” is one of the slowest albums I’ve heard lately—good.  I love ridiculously slow funeral doom as long as it's well written and always has a purpose of moving forward—a slow march.  And this march is long, not for the faint of heart or for people who don’t enjoy this style.  This album has five songs, none of which are under 11 minutes, and a runtime of 1 hour and 12 minutes.   In essence, this is an album that is both wide AND as deep as the ocean.    

The project’s name and album title goes hand in hand. A liturgy is a public ritual of worship and abyssal sort of speaks for itself.  Lamentations are passionate expressions of grief and sorrow.  So, this entire album is a cry out from the void—-only to find itself echoing into another void.  The album has a lot of layers that really help this one reveal itself over time.  The subtleties and little intricacies that make up these layers require multiple listens—every time I listened to this, I discovered something new.  Maybe it was a growl.  Perhaps a drum strike.  Or a latent keyboard passage.  It’s like a tapestry of ideas…a musical sky and when I look up every night, I’ll see stars, but I'll also notice different patterns and fluctuations of light.

The foundation of the album is the massive wall of sound that surrounds it.  These ideas, these sparks that grab the ears and burrow themselves into the brain, live within this wall and constantly bounce off.  It’s a glacial approach but one that is ever moving, however methodical the tempo may be. 

“Abyssal Liturgy,” embraces its sound so well that I would actually call this cinematic.  I can certainly hear this is a dark soundtrack to the end of times, which seems on point right now with the world being on fire.   But darkly orchestral it may be, this isn’t background music.  This is something that really needs to be experienced because it will envelop you, as it did me. 

“Apophasis,” is the denial to speak of something but still finding a way to mention it anyway. I think this could be painful too—perhaps the need to say something but the fear of speaking to whatever the subject may be is too great so a failed attempt to still call it out ensues.  Imagine a “so close yet so far” scenario with emotions and thoughts….maddening, to say the last.  This song is a slow maddening, a long decay brought on by denial.  The suffocating riffs, the powerful drums…like a constant battering of what is inside you.  Regardless of how this song makes you feel it’s impressive that even the light parts are just as damning as the heavier ones.  The clean piano piece after the 9-minute mark isn’t a respite but just another dimension of pain.  The drums have a killer echo effect here, like lighting in the dark with their strikes.  

Circles never end yet they have an obvious form.  “Endless and Formless,” made me think of what could possibly go wrong that something could be endless yet not have a form?   As the guitars hung in the air like a stalled storm and the death growls reached a clawed hand through the black clouds, I thought in a more abstract light.  Why would something endless be physical?  Technically, it can’t be.  Existence itself is endless and formless though, right?  What gave birth to it?  A god, christian or otherwise?  The big bang?  Some undiscovered celestial force of energy?  If it doesn’t have a known beginning, then does it have a known ending?   Our emotions are like that sometimes, I think.  

This song is formless, to a degree. It certainly doesn’t have a conventional structure (none of the songs do but hear me out) but it doesn’t have a beginning and an end.  Within those two points are the walls I spoke of earlier.  But….if those walls keep everything going between them, then this isn’t endless either.  Damn, there I go again trying to sound smart.  Lame.

But the music is deadly serious—this is a dense composition.  The growls are part of the very fabric of the song, acting as another instrument of Gregory’s will.  The keys are fantastic, complimenting yet contrasting the dimension of the mood while the doom keeps growing heavier and darker.  

“The Infinite Decay of the Abyssiverse,” is a prime example of how just because something is infinite doesn’t mean it’s getting better.  The universe is always expanding, right?  So, technically, it’s building towards something grand.  But things fall to ruin and nothing is permanent, even the universe.  New starts will form but old ones will eventually fall into the abyss themselves. 

Such are our emotions.  I’d like to think that life is good with moments of bad sprinkled throughout.  But life isn’t the same for everyone.  Some people would believe, and have every right to think so, that life is bad with moments of good throughout.   This song made me think of something else.  The 13 and half minutes of funeral doom that compromises this track, starts off clean and shiny, perhaps even with hope through the eyes of a dawn of a new day.  But it gradually gets darker and bleaker.  Maybe that’s life.  I’m not saying life is dark and bleak all the time, but it certainly can be just as bright and sunny. So, then life is like a journey—one that isn’t good or bad, light or dark, but just moments in time that perpetually move forward. 

The female cleans, provided by Uyanga Bold, are lithe sparks of sanity within the atmospheric storm that is this song. Sanity can provide clarity—to both good and bad situations.  This song faces those situations head on. The growls are spine chilling—part of the song’s very fabric, almost acting like another layer of riffs.  The last three minutes of this song are grueling in its constant slow-motion hammering.  

The title song is my favorite on the album.  I’m a firm believer that a title track should always be among the best of an album, if not the best.  I love the drums in this album—large and earthy but finding their place in the music perfectly, to constantly add a sense of urgency while the keys and riffs languish their dour crushing blanket upon a sodden ground.  Around the 4:50 mark, more cinematic moments reveal themselves; the word ‘epic’ is thrown around a lot but this, fuck it, this is epic.  The choir vocals, horror drench keys…..it’s masterfully put together and how it slides into a clean piano best is amazing.  The distorted doom returns around the 9-minute mark as the song successfully melds all its previous moods and sounds together into one large movement.  The riffs after the 10:39 mark are really intense—is this the end of the world?   DOOM.     This song is a lamentation…and it’s something I really feel because of being a human living in a world that so often feels like it's spiraling out of control.  Here I am, sitting at my little desk just writing away with the understanding that much of what I feel, and experience is beyond my control.  But much like this song…I march ever forward towards my eventual death. Does any of this matter, in the end?  Are our lives just these lamentations?  

“A Murder of Crows Kept Watching Over the Graves of the Fallen,” is the final song and it's a perfect way to end the album.  There is a finality to it that’s unsettling, maybe is the knowing that even in death we still don’t get peace because, well, there isn’t anything to experience in death (as far as we know).  One can only have peace after understanding unrest.  The dead understand nothing.  Death isn’t a relief—it’s just another transformation.  

This song transforms from black to darker than black. The entire mid passage, with its abstract themes and ominous soundscapes, is easily one of the bleakest and most depressing pieces of music I’ve heard so far this year.  Out of all the songs, this one is the most ‘dirge’ like and it's something that doesn’t wash over you….it goes straight through.  

Abyssal Liturgy’s “Lamentations of the Desolate,” is one scary album because it takes a look at the abyss…and dives right in.   Out of all of Greg’s releases, this is one of my favorites and a prime example of what funeral doom is.  Any fan of this style will find this a worthy challenge to undertake.  

Rating:  Excellent