Review Summary: an unrelenting pillar of melancholy
Several years ago Loss made an indelible impression in the brains of doom metal fans world wide with their 3 song stunner Life Without Hope... Death Without Reason
. It was an absolutely beautiful and unrelenting pillar of melancholy, which was, in many ways, the Funeral Doom equivalent of Warning's Watching From a Distance
in terms of not only general style, but from the emotion that rang out with each somber chord. Unfortunately, yet understandably so, Life Without Hope... Death Without Reason
never really managed to catch on into the global metal lexicon of fair weather doomers like Worship and Skepticism had, despite Loss being more than worthy. Luckily, now after many long years Loss have finally released their follow up, the aptly titled Despond
Like most doom metal albums, Despond
is an incredibly demanding album on the listener but the pay off is in spades. Much like how long-time sludgesters Corrupted finally mastered their take on ugly by incorporating more pleasing sounds into their music on El Mundo Frio
, Loss have wrapped their despair in a very sonically pleasing package on Despond
. While the album itself retains many of the expected protracted heavier than hell dirges that come with the territory, there's an underlying sound of hope that accompanies Loss through the void. It's a welcome mindf
uck, to say the least and makes Despond
such a joy to listen to. It teeters on the brink of misery, indulging in its sorrows, but even though the album is a conceptualization of the thought process leading up to suicide there's always something subtle, be it a harmony or an overall motif, that keeps Despond
from fully embracing the darkness, before it finally plunges into the depths on the album's closer, “The Irreparable Act”. This can be seen to its fullest on “Conceptual Funeralism Unto the Final Act (Of Being)” as the grinding guitars and processional drum beats sound as though hell itself has opened up beneath you as you fall further and further into sorrow before one of the most hauntingly beautiful harmonies put to tape pulls you back up. It is emotion portrayed and exploited to its fullest.
What Loss have made on Despond
is too engaging to be ignored. In a year that has yet to see a landmark release in the metal world's brooding underground, Despond
couldn't have come sooner. It is a quintessential slab of funeral doom that should finally garner Loss the respect that they've so long deserved.