Evadne – Dethroned of Light EP
In the world of doom metal, it’s pretty simple to categorize any one band, in fact many of them sound so similar furthering delineating by way of another adjective is often fruitless, or better to say delusional. However, if there’s one clear derivation in the genre, it’s funeral doom. You’ve probably already heard of the greats or the legends, such as Ea, but to summarize, funeral doom is slow, so slow it sounds like you’re witnessing the wake of your beloved in musical form, even though you haven’t dated anyone in decades, thus the title. It’s slow as hell, no that’s too fast. It’s slower than absolute zero, it freezes everything, every part of you, even the very essence of what you consider a soul. Even Gods freeze before it. But the reason for that is, generally, it never really goes anywhere. Often relying on extended chords that take forever to develop, longer than death, it incorporates symphonics of some form, though most usually keyboard strings, organs, and the like. But, main issue, it’s so slow it becomes arduous to recognize a chord, let alone a thing called a riff. When it takes twenty measures for one alteration, yeah, pretty hard to hold anyone’s attention, and thus so-called funeral doom has often been referred to as a niche genre, for the absolute freaks who enjoy collapsing in angst upon fainting couches and walking around in black lace from head to toe. The only bands to really get any recognition have been the ones mixing the slow, trudging pace with melodic. Not an easy task, because if you go too far in that direction, well, then it’s just melodic and your thematic approach becomes a joke.
Evadne, pff, we know them, don’t you? Check out our review of their last full-length before you even continue, especially track three, “This Complete Solitude”. Limited to only 500 copies in celebration of their first release ten years ago, we were coming into this one with complete knowledge of what these depressed, downtrodden, moaning wraiths from Spain are all about. Summary of that last one for you briefly; what really drew us in was their tendency to speed up their music, when required, descending back into sluggish hate just when you were feeling good about life. Dethroned of Light was actually a complete surprise, because it’s almost nothing like their previous work. It groans from the grave with new life, its old bones are more solid than they appear as you observe them move past funeral to anti-matter. This time around, there’s only a very brief moment of speed, near the end, the rest will literally cause you to die. Evadne, it seems, was more interested in creating pure musical dredge this time around, a short symphony of agony with a focus on delicate, yet powerful structures and a heavy interplay between a variety of instruments in addition to the expected. Does it work?
Honestly, at first, it’s not going to impress you, you’ll shrug it off, you’ll forget about it. It’s slow, but dense, but the slowness will likely crush the uninitiated, which makes sense since it’s uber-limited anyway. Under the chords and tear-soaked riffs there was perhaps more information to process than expected, but let it happen, trust us. Evadne has created here what could be best described as a lyrical dirge covering four tracks. Dethroned of Light is painfully slow, so slow at first it sounds like the kind of funeral doom you want to avoid entirely. But, as you listen further, the piano, the strings, the beautiful, swooning voice of Natalie Koskinen, it all comes together as a carefully-constructed masterpiece. Each track is completely jammed with technique, style, and development. In fact, let your attention lapse for a second and you swear it’s an entirely different song because of the variety of movements and alterations in both flow and style. Evadne goes from crushing to delicate, tenuous to substantial, it’s an impressive combination of all the right elements of funeral doom, as well as some hefty melodic interaction. The vocals even work back and forth from death rattles to laments. The only complaint we could find is the vocal delivery for the harsher moments can be somewhat overpowering, it could have taken a slight step back in volume, or an addition of some effects for more space, such as echo, would have likely corrected that issue, but it’s only slight. This one will take you several listens to fully understand, but it’s worth it.
Written by Stanley Stepanic
Evadne – Dethroned of Light EP
Self-Released
4.5 / 5
