Aphonic Threnody - Grace My Heart

Aphonic Threnody is a funeral doom metal band from the United Kingdom, who formed in 2012.  Their latest release, “Grace My Heart,” is their seventh full-length album; they have also released an EP, three splits, and an updated version of their debut full-length album, “When Death Comes.” 

I’ve been following this band since I discovered them when I received the album, “The Great Hatred,” for review in 2020 when I worked for Metal Temple.  I’m honored and happy to say that I’ve reviewed every album since.  I mention this fact because when I say, “Grace My Heart,” might be the band’s best album, I want it to be known how serious of a statement that is. 

The musician behind all this doomed out glory is the mastermind Riccardo V, who, as always, surrounds himself with several other amazing musicians to help get this raw display of emotional power out to the world.  “Grace My Heart,” is an album that sounds a bit different from Aphonic Threnody’s other albums but not so much that it won’t be instantly recognizable to fans.  Riccardo is too masterful of a songwriter to give anything less than 100%, including the ability to move in different directions while retaining the core sound that makes the band so special in the first place.

“Grace My Heart,” is an album that feels like an honest expression of the shades of life that we so often shy away from or try to sweep into the shadows, away from where we never trend.  This album isn’t simply embracing these shadows—-it is them.  How do we face loss?  How do we measure grief?  Can there be beauty again?  Or is life and death not about loss and gain or sad and happy?  Maybe that’s just what life is.  It isn’t good or bad, but just an experience that we all must learn to live through in our own ways?  

These are the questions I ask myself whenever I play this album.  I don’t know if these are notions of the band or not—I can only express what I feel when I listen to their music.  But that’s the beauty of their music, and music in general: each of us has our own journey and must take things the way only we can.  Does that not mirror life experiences as well?  

I love, have loved.  I have lost and will continue to do so.  One day I, too, will be lost and leave behind an existence that will be mourned by an important few.  “Grace My Heart,” is already an amazing album for making me speak of these things.  So, thank you Ricardo, and the rest of the band, for making music that has such depths.  I hope you realize how important Aphonic Threnody is.  

The mixing/mastering is an important part of this album, too.  This is music that needs every little detail to be heard.  But it isn’t just the nuances, the notes hidden in nooks and crannies, that need an outlet.  The more extreme elements of the album, such as the growls, screams, and riffs, need their time to crawl out from the darkness and be seen.  That isn’t a problem for “Gracey My Heart,” because everything is heard with a clarity that is both crushing and dynamic. 

This album’s length is as long as most of their other albums, at a runtime of an hour and six minutes but features a little more songs with a total of eight, and none of them making it up to the 11-minute mark.  This approach works for the structure of the album because, even more so than on their previous albums, each song feels distinctly different.  Every song runs as long as it needs to, nothing more or nothing less.  If there isn’t enough to say, keep it yourself.  If there is too much to say, maybe it will come out wrong.  But this album?  It speaks in volumes and each song is a journey with the right amount of prose and structure for the music to thrive in.

There are also a lot of types of cleans on this album, both male and female and each of them have a wide range to play with.  From strained, almost operative, to fragile, and lithe, the variety of vocals on display is impressive.  Of course, there are plenty of moments of extremity as well and the growls/screams are just as impressive, just as emotionally potent.  The three vocalists on this album are Déhà (another musical mastermind, if you don't know who he is then you have some homework to do), Delora (Lurking, Moonskin), and Gévaudan (Anthropovore, Demande à la Poussière) and each of them bring so much to the album.

Musically, the songs aren’t quite as “dirge-like,” as on previous albums.  The atmosphere is much more sprawling—adventurous in its own way.  A lot of melody and Gothic textures exists within the funeral doom framework this time around and it definitely helps make their must that much more haunting yet with the added bonus of eschewing the finality of it all with a more philosophical approach. 

The album opens with the title track, which is a statement in of itself.  I like my doom slow and thankfully this album does indeed share my sentiments but that doesn’t mean the songs can’t be immediate.  This begins with a few seconds of clean tones before a massive riff slam down with wonderful cleans gliding through the distortion.  It’s like a slow-motion dance of macabre, where varying shades of grey and black intertwine to create extensive patterns and images.  The drums foreshadow the growls to come as the song approaches its halfway point—the extreme vocals sound so amazing.  Although they obviously contrast with the cleans, the different approaches also work together seamlessly. 

“And Solace I Did Not Find,” is one of the best songs the band has ever done.  Everything about this song represents the result, the culmination of years that has led up to this album’s release.  If someone asked me what this band sounds like or wanted me to introduce them, this would definitely be one of the songs I’d choose.  The long intro is classic funeral doom, what with its clean tones that give way to a horrifically dense sound of growls, killer bass drums, and riffs that seem to sink lower and lower as the seconds slowly tick by.    The bass is amazing and reveals its strong flow through a balanced low end that crushes while progressing the song forward.  Despite the tempo, there is a sense of urgency and a quiet roar as the song passes the six-minute mark. The last four minutes are among the most intense and doomed out on the album.  

“Hooded Claw,” is another song that will go down as one of their best. That opening growl sent shivers down my spine the first time I heard it—and still does.  The drums are perfectly placed throughout the song—I’ve said this before several times, but it is hard to make drums feel atmosphere but Ricardo pulled it off here.  The dour, melodic guitars sing their song of forgotten beauty as the growls grow from like a flower that needs moonlight to open and thrive.  After the four-minute mark, the song becomes quite arresting and so potent that its monolithic sound completely envelops time and space if you have a good pair of headphones. The clean vocals are used sporadically on this song, but they are placed in the structure at the opportune moments for full effectiveness.  

The final song, “My Fire Will Live Eternally,” is a fitting final statement for the album because this song will indeed leave its mark.  The growls in the beginning are something to behold—the raw power here is nearly palpable.  This song embraces its slow temple by a methodical display of the power of doom. Every note, every vocal line, has its home to live in where they all thrive and give a full display of everything Ricardo wanted to achieve with this album.  I get more chills after the four-minute mark when the rising clean vocals clash with the extreme ones—a sterling concoction indeed.   The clean instrumental passage after the five-minute mark makes for a fantastic, minimalistic bridge to the other side where a more desperate and clawing energy exists.

It’s been a hot minute since I gave an album a perfect score but Aphonic Threnody’s “Grace My Heart“ deserves such praise.  It’s amazing to see/hear/feel the growth of this band as they continue to impress with each and every album, they put out.  I can’t think of any reason why anyone even remotely interested in this style wouldn’t get something out of this experience. 

Rating: MASTERFUL