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Evoken: Atra mors
19/11/12 || The Duff
Evoken are back with their first record in five years, the follow-up to the underwhelming “A Caress of the Void”. Well, they’ve released a perfect album, I think probably the album of their careers, and if “Antithesis of Light” made them heroes of the sub-genre, goodness knows what this will do to their status considering it’s 2012 and a little late in the game to be changing your formula much.
And that’s the surprising thing, they haven’t done so yet I think this album will smash the funeral doom sub-genre into bits. If “Antithesis of Light” was a perfect album, they’ve gone with a honed formula that builds largely off said record but mixes some of the ethereal melody off “Quietus”. Hang on to your nipple tassels, I’m going in deep.
The first track is classic Evoken, a return to the feel of an epic track like “Where Ghosts Fall Silent”. The build-up is slow, eerie, plodding along with a fantastic use of keys overlaid a simple introductory riff before we’re thrown into the band’s knack for the bizarre and unsettling, cleans and distortion mixing to a style of doom that is purely synonymous with this band.
The rest of the album has a depth rarely touched quite so naturally on past releases, though. The genius of track two for example creeps up on you; when I first heard the melody and the reverb drenched clean guitars I thought it to be hackneyed, but then the keys came in and the second guitar, the vocals then the chants all building off of each other to sweet, beautiful misery.
It’s insanely moving, despairing, entrancing, fantastic. Interspersed within the tracklist we have two interludes which are actually musical; they divide the album equally into cuts of two tracks a go, don’t seem misplaced but don’t necessarily add much. They’re simply pleasant to listen to – this means we’re back to the Evoken failsafe of six sturdy tracks that each flow beautifully, spectacularly.
In conclusion, this for me is the album that should have followed on from “The Antithesis of Light”; moreso, both in the album’s sound and atmosphere, I find this one to fit snugly after “Quietus” in their catalogue seeing as it is more depressing than ominous, unlike “Antithesis”.
We have the more raw, emotional richness of their earlier days plus the usual dark, distressing, altogether a great mix of honest, passionate, despairing and evil. Plus, the keys are back in full force, something that was sorely lacking on the last Evoken record seeing as they’re such a masterful rendition of the doom sub-genre, pretty much unique to Evoken alone the way the band uses them.
There is not a dull moment on “Atra Morse” (Latin for “a plague on all your houses” – can’t get any cooler than that). In short, I think this is top-five of the year material, probably one of the greatest doom records of its time, thankfully after bands like Esoteric and Ahab seeming on a bit of a lull.
- Information
- Released: 2012
- Label: Profound Lore
- Website: Evoken MySpace
- Band
- John Paradiso: vocals, guitars
- Chris Molinari: guitars
- David Wagner: bass
- Don Zaros: keyboards
- Vince Verkay: drums
- Tracklist
- 01. Atra Mors
- 02. Descent into Chaotic Dream
- 03. A Tenebrous Vision
- 04. Grim Eloquence
- 05. An Extrinsic Divide
- 06. Requies Aeterna
- 07. The Unechoing Dread
- 08. Into Aphotic Devastation
