BORIS
Smile
(Southern Lord)

HELLBLOCK 6
Nuclear Age
(World Eater)

AHLEUCHATISTAS
Even in the Midst...
(Cuneiform)

GLOOMY SUNDAY
Beyond Good and Evil
(Solitude Prod)

SQUALORA
S/T
(Wantage)

BUSH TETRAS
Very Very Happy 

(ROIR)

POPULATION
REDUCTION
At the Throats of Man Forever

(Tankcrimes)

MORE REVIEWS

What a bummer this is. As it should, Beyond Good and Evil starts with the portentous track “Living Dead at the Trade Center Morgue”; a long extended jam of sludge and slime where a dragged corrosive riff serves as bleak backdrop to the agonizing vocals and to a sample of Bush announcing how those events managed to change the world. As the title reveals, the song deals with the events of September 11, but it remarkably manages to mix explicit lyricism about the violence that ensued and its religious roots. Still touchy about the stuff? Well, get over it. It’s not for nothing that this album is titled Beyond Good and Evil.  For the remainder of the album, Sweden’s Gloomy Sunday proceeds to pound our senses against the ground with sluggish doom; for the most part simple downtuned riffs give way to nothing but power. It is rare the occasion when like during “Burnt Out the Sun”, a sparkling guitar gives Gloomy Sunday a slightly different approach.  Curiously enough, it is only during this track that the band approximates a more slow tempo Entombed circa 1992 sound.  Were Gloomy Sunday to keep this approach, they’ll be the perfect bridge between primitive Swedish death metal and crusty doom.

Sweden’s Gloomy Sunday takes its name from the 1930’s Hungarian pop song that would be popularized in the US by the great Billie Holiday.   Dealing with despair and hopelessness the songs is said to have inspired hundreds of suicides. Fitting as all nooses, this band takes matters very seriously but is no exempt to pick up the pace during the punky “End Trip”, a nice contrast and change of pace to an almost one note album. 

Special mention should go to the awesome artwork adorning Beyond Good and Evil; the cover is a shot of the cult Brit film “The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue”, but the biggest pearl lies inside; initially supposed to be the cover artwork, it presents a hilarious and disturbing collage of mushrooms, buildings, corpses, planets, night sky, half planes/half penises and a black eagle.  They say that good things come for those who wait and the last track proves that maxim right; “Dead, Love, Autumn” is a rather poetic two-part humongous fifteen minute paean to pessismism and doomed destiny.  Looking at current state of affairs, it seems about right and Gloomy Sunday is only pushing us closer.

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