5/28/11

Absum - Purgatoire


1st & 2nd Pressings from Crepusculo Negro are sold-out from the label. Some copies may still be around in distros here and there. A re-mastered vinyl version will be available in the coming months. Here are some reviews and links to rips of the tape...

Picture the raw, buzzing, hypnotic quality of lo-fi black metal. Now, instead of playing it on the peaks of a frostbitten mountain, take it down far below sea-level, buried deep within a forgotten cavern. Let the sound echo through the void. It would sound something like this tape. Really raw and captivating blackened funeral doom that radiates an IMMENSE amount of power. HIGHLY, highly reccomended but certainly not for everyone.

Called 'Funeral Doom' by some, this is an LA based act that's the alter ego of Black Metal act Glossolalia, both being new kin of the Black Twilight Circle. In my eyes, it's Doom in outline only, Black Metal at heart and musically its noisey, jarring, and despondent. It's meditative, it's agonizing, it's dissonant. It's the audial essence of a slow-drip-suicide. And I fuckin love it. It's also the perfect counterpart to this one-man band's alter ego in Glossolalia (which I'll post soon-ish). Great stuff! Hoping to see more from both acts.

From lurkerspath.com – 2010 in Funeral Doom
Now for something from the rawer end of the genre. The American Absum (watch out: there’s an Italian funeral doom band with the same name) is the slower-paced alterego of USBM artist Glossolalia, and seems to be an ally of the Black Twilight circle. This tape offers four short songs in 20 minutes, but somehow Absum manages to pack more ideas into each track than you get on 50% of bedroom funeral doom albums. Excessive rawness and a harsh, clipped sound is nothing new in the world of Black Metal, but it gives this slab of funeral doom a rare and much-needed punch. Raw as it is, though, Purgatoire has all the harmonic density you’d expect from Glossolalia or any of the Black Twilight bands. I’m guessing this has sold out, but you could try emailing the label.
Black Twilight does it again, this tima a torturous funeral doom exercise from Absum. There are four movements on this cassette, each one more painful and beautiful than the next. The pace is agonizing, and I keep finding myself pleading silently for these tracks to go somewhere, but that frustration is the whole point. Dark industrial dirges through space and sound, Absum create an atmosphere in these 20 minutes than most bands would spend their entire existence trying to replicate. Worship Black Twilight, indeed.