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Mourning Beloveth 'The Sullen Sulcus'

Released late last year, The Sullen Sulcus is Mourning Beloveth's second full length album and shows that these Irish lads have got more than what it takes to resurrect funeral doom. While Anathema play Pink Floyd, Paradise Lost play rock star, and My Dying Bride attempt to resurrect their older sound, Mourning Beloveth are paying homage to their greater days. To put it out there early, if you enjoyed Anathema's Serenades/Crestfallen album, then this is for you; forlorn, melancholy and emotive doom, with lots of layered melodies and saddened harmonies. Within these six lengthy tunes, you get all quality material, no filler, intros or interludes, just deep compositions that will shoot a blackened arrow of misery into your withered heart. While not as crushing and oppressive as recently the reviewed Pantheist album, it's more subtle in its delivery, choosing afar more delicate form of guitar work, rather than vast rumbling riffs. The music contains a more controlled depression with reliance on rueful harmonies rather than massive riffs. The vocals of are your typical deep growl, although there is some rare spoken and clean vocal work that with its heavy brogue accent, gives these moments unique feel. Of course as with any doom album, the songs are drawn out affairs, ranging from seven minutes to over 13; so a quick listen, this is not. The production is unusually clean and fairly light in the bottom end, so the crawling lethargic moments are never quite as oppressively heavy as you'd like, but as I stated before, this is more rooted in layered melodies, so the sound actually works for this material. "The Words that Crawled" opens up with some superior Anathema worship in the form of some ever so sweetly played euphonies and emotive spoken word lyrics. This early into the album, I did catch my self thinking this was going to be a more Solstice-type doom, with no bellowed vocals, and I was a tad disappointed, but Mourning Beloveth soon deliver the welcome growls and when it all combines so perfectly its truly disheartening. Those expecting any kind of break from structure or pace will have to go elsewhere. Mourning Beloveth offer no changes in pace whatsoever, no experimental blastbeats or death metal musing, this shit just keeps draining you emotionally without respite. The album's shortest track "It Almost Looked Human", feels more like classic Paradise Lost, as its utter sonic misery, the use of the clever clean vocal harmonies give it a strange surreal vibe to complement the total despondency. As with most doom, it's patient listen, music for headphones and an free hour or two. Four songs into the album, you've sunken so low into an emotional hole that therapy might be needed to drag you out of it. What ends up happening by virtue of the music's chosen style is, half way in, you're in a semi-conscious state of slobbering catatonia. Almost every listen of this album ended with me being asleep before it finished. Not because it's bad, but because it's so good. It's more of a tribute to the style and how well Mourning Beloveth perform it. It's around the 5:30 minute mark of "The Insolent Call", where they inject a superb refrain, that I start to involuntarily fade into an emotional void. By the time the title track rumbles by in its 13-minute entirety, I've checked out mentally, with only the capacity to breath and my synapses drowned into futility by overwhelming waves of grief and despair. I'm straining to stay with it right now as immmmmmmmmmodjc. Ugh! where was I? Oh. Is that drool on my keyboard? When my brain does attempt a brief return to consciousness, it's barely able to comprehend that the title track is actually a far less harmonic journey than the rest of the album, feeling much more like MDB's early simplistic and lengthy dirges. Lyrically there are no real surprises but they are well written; "There is something painful in the first spring-bud of life, it tears at the inside and claws at the doors of tenderness that riseth in black forms from an obsolete graveyard": from "Narcissistic Funeral". I don't think these guys will be having a Coke and a smile anytime soon. When "Angers Steaming Arrows" finally ends this sublime album, with some surprisingly uplifting guitarwork, as only the best doom acts are able to do, they end with just a slight ray of hope struggling to penetrate the darkness. It's a very subtle shift in sound and feel, and one that only the best songwriters can deliver without entering other genres. It's strange that two superb doom albums had differing effects on me. Pantheist's O Solitude had me enthralled, captivated and crushed. The Sullen Sulcus had me teetering on the edge of consciousness and emotionally drained. What great feelings to have back again, aren't they?