Evoken – Mendacium (Existential Funeral Doom)
Huh, what do you know? I didn’t think a band from the US could pull off something like this, but it looks like the winds of unearthly spirits are finally sweeping the lands, or at least the east coast as this band’s from New Jersey. New Jersey? Holy this this is a miracle, and I mean that beyond hyperbole, because Evoken takes some serious risks with their sound. Funeral doom often relies on building monoliths, believing that slow force is the essence, unaware that the structure, by the end, is only so much straw. Mendacium, however, with its crushing and gentle extremes, sprawls over an hour as the listener kneels within a sonic cathedral of ancient despair.
A noticeable difference here is that Evoken allow other sounds to dominate the landscape. You’ll find main passages floating to the background as piano and synth take hold, developing an existential dread with the band’s glacier-paced riffing and clever references to archaic, medieval religious practices. Surprisingly, the production is crystal clear, which allows the chording to crush bone into dust while the atmosphere remains appropriately murky. With vocals that fill the caverns in which they were born, but which are also not afraid to move into softness, the ultimate package is one of a veritable masterpiece. Though it’s a journey worth taking, it will be obvious in only a few minutes that Evoken can haunt as well as they can suffocate, and in its weird, Gothic grandeur Mendacium places a hypnotic pull on the listener, leading one straight into primordial dread.
Written by Stanley, Devourer of Souls
Evoken – Mendacium
Profound Lore Records
Cover Art: Will Kuberski (Worthless)
4.8 / 5
