### Abysmal Grief: Feretri

#### 23/07/13 || gk

This is the latest album from Italian doom band Abysmal Grief and “Feretri” is one impressive piece of work. The band has been active since 1995 and over the course of a bunch of EPs and 2 full lengths, Abysmal Grief has slowly but surely evolved into an impressive and unique sounding outfit in a crowded genre.

The first thing to hit me as the album opens with “Lords of the funeral” is the massive sound. The guitars crush, the bass is thick and suffocating and the organ is beautifully mixed becoming more of an accompaniment here than the lead instrument it was on the previous album. The song manages to balance the heavy and the melodic quite well and is groovy in a 70s way without pandering to the current trends of the genre. The lead guitar section is well thought out and vocalist Labes C. Necrothytus’s baritone is dramatic without sounding comical. The next song “Hidden in the graveyard” is the centrepiece of the album and has a strange Goblin like Italian 70s horror movie soundtrack vibe to it and the vocal shift from deep baritone to well calculated rasps is effective and powerful.

The band sort of goes back to the usual after the first 2 songs but the quality of songwriting remains high. “Crepusculum” is a short mood piece with some sombre organ and bass accompanied with hooting owls and forest sounds and is a very effective little piece. “The gaze of the owl” continues the theme but delivers with a thick and rumbling low end. The song is some groovy doom metal and the slow build is well done. “Her scythe” closes out the album in epic fashion with its mournful opening riff and builds and builds over the course of 11 minutes while always sounding like its being held tightly in control and never quite exploding. This works quite well and finishes the album on a sombre and mournful note.

Abysmal Grief is evolving with every album. The changes here are all mostly minor and if you liked the previous 2 albums, you’ll probably love this. The band has refined their methods and the result is an album of 6 high quality songs. The playing is top notch and the songs while being dramatic in delivery are also memorable. Abysmal Grief take pointers from every trend currently popular in doom metal, managing to sound sludgy, occult, progressive, 70s worshipping, Gothic and traditional all at the same time and the result is an album that is immediately identifiable as being the work of Abysmal Grief.

“Feretri” is a unique piece of work that stands as the logical successor to the band’s earlier albums and Abysmal Grief has delivered one impressive album here. Fans of the band will love this but if you have any interest in doom metal at all then you should really check this one out.

- Information
- Released: 2013
- Label: Horror records
- Website: www.abysmalgrief.com
- Band
- Labes C. Necrothytus: vocals, keyboards
- Regen Graves: guitars, drums
- Lord Alastair: bass

- Tracklist
- 01. Lords of the Funeral
- 02. Hidden in the Graveyard
- 03. Sinister Gleams
- 04. Crepusculum
- 05. The Gaze of the Owl
- 06. Her Scythe