The
Baguette Doom Series pt. IV : Humpback Whales
France
is actually quite well known for its handful of funeral doom metal bands.
2013 is an awesome and important year for the fans of this slow and
painful music as it marks the release of the new albums of Funeralium
and Ataraxie, their first in 6 and 5 years respectively. Offering
almost 3 hours, my appetite for the genre is definitely satisfied.
“Deceived Idealism”, a double album of 87 minutes is another
massive testament to everything heavy and should shut the mouths of
the French naysayers, these guys are never gonna surrender.
Sharing
2 core members, both bands are somewhat following similar paths as
they play the same yet not very common metal style. Funeral doom is
not for your overall plebeian metalhead as it requires a lot of
attention and effort to get through half an hour songs. But if you
survived the 37 minutes song on Elysian Blaze's latest album, you'll
be fine here. Funeralium has a lot more sludge and experimental/noise
influences than their brother band who's all about anguishing funeral
doom/death. The death metal elements, outside of the cavernous
vocals, isn't quite present here, it's a bit more near depressive
black metal but that's still a stretch. After their superb self
titled album, the band released an album maybe not as original and
weirdly distorted but I believe it's more focused (even though it's
longer) and their style has been refined.
The
album has 6 tracks, 3 on each CD and both sides are opened by shorter
introductions. “Blood, Phlegm and Vomit” is a noisy, sludgey
opener with harsh distorted vocals. Even though it doesn't sound
quite like their usual stuff, it's setting the tone of the album
perfectly. It's torturous and weird within the limits of what funeral
doom can achieve. It's a fitting introduction to an uneasy (in the
most pleasant way possible) album. After its mere 3:45 minutes, the
intro track gives his place to “21st Century Inepsia” and its
crushing demeanor. The opener of CD number 2, “Hang These Bastards”
is a six minutes track and you know the samples you can find in a
movie torrent to show the quality of the rip? Well, this track is
encapsulating their formula
 |
| Alternative cover art for the vinyl version |
The
band has nothing to envy to the English legends Esoteric in terms of
atmosphere, songwriting and musicianship. In fact, if they were to
fight, it would probably be the Hundred Years' War part two since
they're both slow and fucking violent in their emotional intensity.
They should perhaps do a 4 hours split together and see who's the
best at annihilating the souls of their listeners?
Marquis'
vocals are once again superb. Going from cavernous Dutch influenced
harsh vocals to higher pitched blackened goodness. Most present than
in your usual funeral doom band, they drive the enormous wall of
noise created by the duo of guitars. From clean and atmospheric to
tremolos of vividness, the 25 minutes title track is encompassing
everything Funeralium can do. They're explorers of the deepest abyss
of the humans' cosmos and their slowed down approach makes it even
more thoughtful.
The
extreme French doom scene is really growing with the help of
Funeralium, they're pushing the funeral doom genre forward with ease
and class. “Deceived Idealism” is definitely one of the
highlights of the year.
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