Silent Deep Ocean - Essence of Existence II: The Blood of Ghosts

Silent Deep Ocean is a funeral doom solo band/project from musician Gregory Ritchey, who also helms the projects Abyssal Liturgy and his solo material under his name.  “Essence of Existence II:  The Blood of Ghosts,” is Silent Deep Ocean’s 7th full-length album.  Combining metal with symphonic textures or orchestral arrangements isn't anything new in metal but “Essence of Existence II: The Blood of Ghosts” successfully pairs the two seemingly desperate styles together better than most albums I've heard this year so far.

It works so well because the orchestration matches the tone and atmosphere of the doom. None of the arrangements are bombastic or shoved out in front. They don't steal the limelight but instead act as another instrument to make the songs really shine.  On the other side of the music, the doom is a slow grind of death growls and riffs that feel like lead raining down from the skies. Even then, the funeral doom doesn't overtake its symphonic counterparts. 

This six song album is nearly 90 minus long and only one song is under 10 minutes.  The entirety of its runtime is interesting and tragically beautiful. This isn't music that will make you put your foot on the case pedal at 100 mph nor will it inspire any fist pumping, mosh-ready jams. Good. I don't want that in my doom metal. Thrash or death? Sure, why not. But doom, particularly funeral doom, sounds best as the music transcends notes and becomes something nearly tangible. 

This is music that demands attention. This is music that you listen to through good headphones and let it breathe into you. Let it become you and it while all sense of time is lost in impermeable darkness. I will say that this is a unique album with all its dynamics. Obviously, it has a lot of crushing heaviness. But the orchestrations add a subtle epicness to the songs. But it also feels ambient and sparse in places--the liminal spaces in between.

So, it is an album of layers and, depending on the listener, passages will sound different in terms of sonic density and interpretation.  If that isn't the mark of great songwriting, then I don't know what is–this is an album you can go as deep as you want with.

Just listen to the open moments of the first song, “The Blood of Ghosts I - The Stars Have Devoured Me.”  As a whole, it’s an apocalyptic song on many levels but if you dig deeper, the intricate qualities will begin to show them.  One layer is the orchestrations/symphonics that create the sound of infinite space.  The other layer is the more metallic elements that show that infinite space is never-ending nothingness. The void.  Death.  The drums act like the birth of stars, suddenly bombastic creations that manage to cast themselves out from the darkness before they too are devoured.  The vocals are some sort of..uncreation.  The voice of the created before creation was a possibility.  Speaking of the vocals:  Greg sounds incredibly towering and inhuman on this album.  They aren’t so much growls as they are tendrils of bleakness, a cosmic horror stretching out beyond what we know. 

“Primordial Doctrines of Creation,” ebbs and flows like the roaring waves of whatever hand dealt the universe its primal life.  From moments of suffocating heaviness to deceptively peaceful passages of keys, this song is a journey that unfurls itself then pulls back…only to strike again but not the same as before.  After the 7:30 mark, the song gets particularly aggressive, what with the brutal guitar tone and growls.  

The shortest song on the album is one of my favorites, the eight minute long “A Breath Taken in Desolation.”  I like this one a lot because it shows the full dynamics of the varying degrees used to make this album.  The intro of clean choir and simple, clean tones is tragic yet moving.  It moves perfectly into thick riffs, their vibrating rhythms casting out like cosmic waves.  The orchestral simulations in the background lift the guitars and bass up with what could be first perceived as gentle hands, but their mournful sounds are just as hopeless and profane.  The middle part of the song is an ambient style passage, but the bass keeps it grounded as it pushes forward back into the slow-moving but rising action of the funeral march of oblivion.

“A Memory of Loss,” is the centerpiece of the album for me.   This song is a gargantuan 22 minutes long and every second deserves your utmost attention–these notes need to be not only listened to but felt.  This song is as big as a planet and has as many details as possible.  Passages of it feel claustrophobic while others have a sort of openness to them.  Through the music, this one is as gentle as a light wind but can get as a black as a ferocious thunderstorm.  

“A Quiet Place for Remembering Loved Ones,” is a gut-wrenching song but so good. I almost feel bad saying that because I’d hate to promote what is such obvious personal pain for Greg by saying it is such an enjoyable song.  But I’m hoping writing/recording this sorrowful epic was enough for it to be cathartic and maybe even find him a bit of peace—or at least acceptance. This just might be one of the saddest songs I’ve heard this year.  This isn’t just doom for the sake of the style: this is regret, pain, and loneliness all rolled into 12 minutes of raw being, a fellow human on this rock letting it all out.  I’m sorry for your pain but I’m sure this song will help others.  

The final song, “Absentia Seraphorum,” is one of the heaviest, darkest songs Silent Deep Ocean has done to date–and possibly my favorite under this moniker.  This one is just over 13 minutes in length and it’s a song that must be experienced in a way that only doom can provide.  The clean keys sound just as sinister as the riffs they compliment.  There is a subtlety in the riffs, like a glacier that slowly moves but gains ground, inch by inch—always moving forward, perpetually arriving.  The riffs pick up a bit after the three-minute mark as the song is flushed with trepidation.   This nervous energy helps build up the maelstroms that are the snarling death growls.  From the halfway point all the way to the end is like the soundtrack to finality. It plays out before you, but nothing can be done—just take it in and soon realize that, for better or for worse, your troubles will soon be no more as you rejoin the tapestry from which you were birthed. 

Silent Deep Ocean’s “Essence of Existence II:  The Blood of Ghosts,” is an album that lives up to the hype that always surrounds adjectives like “epic” and "cinematic," because the song writing came straight from the recesses of the writer’s person.  I think this may have been a hard album for Greg to do but to use his pain to create something like this speaks loud on many levels.  I have no doubt others will find this album just as important to themselves as he does.  This is doom at some of its most potent and primal in the year 2026.  

Rating:  Excellent