The debut full-length from Greek band Automaton is weighty, sludgy, coffin-lid-slamming Doom perfection.
(Read more)
Anti-humanistic, experimental Drone/Noise Doom from France. Features member of Darvulia....
(read more)
The Cold View : Born Banished Beaten Broken Buried
Welcome to another beautifully dark palette of Ambient, Drone and Funeral Doom from German project The Cold View. |
 |
| 'Born, Banished, Beaten, Broken, Buried' is German band The Cold View's latest album. It still carries a mixture of Ambient, Drone and Funeral Doom Metal and keeps the same vein as the previous three albums. It features just four songs with all of them over twelve minutes long. The mixing and mastering is top notch, as you would expect from Greg Chandler of Esoteric. This was done at his ever-busy Priory Recording Studio in Birmingham.
The album starts with the song 'Born And Banished', with big sounding drums and a slow menacing drone on guitar. The vocals are deep, dark and guttural. Some slow synths add a sombre-sounding layer of harmonies. The pace slows midway through with clean passages and ambient sounds. It feels like it’s building to something as vocals start to impress upon the song. This song is over fourteen minutes of misery that needs to be absorbed and feasted on. It hits everything that you would expect on themes such as questions about life, death, loneliness and the pain of existence. The song closes with a faster tempo and it’s a very dark opening track. Another couple of monsters have awoken. These songs just pulsate and drone remorselessly into your veins. No glimmer of hope lies within these instruments. It’s all played out to a horrible ending. You feel trapped and alone like in some horrible dark chamber with no air, you slowly suffocate and wilt away to dust. The tempo changes are clever and keep the overall rhythm moving nicely but the riffs keep grinding you down. The clean notes still add little lingering chimes to carry the songs along. The bass is super heavy on all songs and adds much depth and weight. The last song 'Broken And Buried' is over eighteen minutes long. It starts with beautiful clean strumming. A very different feel to the previous songs, but darkness soon crashes in. It carries a more mellow vibe but still is sorrowful and depressing. The synths play a bigger role in this song. When everything has slowly passed you are left with only time and space to reflect. It’s another dark masterpiece from The Cold View. Whether they can go any darker is left to future works, but for now we are left with this bleak outlook on life. Click HERE to discuss this review on the doom-metal forum. |
| Tracklist : 1. Born And Banished 2. Banished And Beaten 3. Beating And Broken 4. Broken And Buried Duration : Approx. 59 minutes Visit the The Cold View bandpage. |
