(written by Islander)
“You forget what you want to remember, and you remember what you want to forget. That is how memory works. Pain and suffering etch themselves onto your soul, while joy seems to be a fleeting whisper you can barely hold onto. It is this paradox of memory that haunts us all, leaving us to wonder what we are, what we were, and what we might become.”
— The Road by Cormac McCarthy“I stand beneath the open sky, at the setting of the sun. The still waters stretch before me to the distant horizon and the clouds drift slowly across the vast canvas of the sky – a brilliant blending of deepest blues, rich purples, vivid red and warm orange. Yet for all the open vista, the space and freedom, I am trapped; suffocating in a labyrinth of black desperation. The cold walls of insurmountable sorrows and confusion contain me and I am imprisoned by past scars that have become infected, poisoned by the cruel, slow venoms of grief, loss and guilt. I built this maze, but I have long since forgotten the way to freedom…”
— Marche Funèbre
I probably could have left those two quotations and moved right along, without further embellishment, to the premiere stream of Marche Funèbre‘s new album After the Storm (set for release by Ardua Music on September 27th) that we’re hosting today. I had the second one already. Purely by coincidence, I saw the first one shared on social media just as I was finalizing this premiere article. It’s from a devastating and unforgettable work by the late Mr. McCarthy, and seemed entirely suitable to the experience of the album, which is itself often devastating — and I suspect will be very hard to forget as time passes.
On the other hand, those quotations could also be a bit misleading, because it turns out that After the Storm is as vibrant and as heart-pounding as it is heart-aching.
So, of course I have added further embellishments of my own, as a tribute to the people who made After the Storm, if nothing else. And it deserves some embellishment by Marche Funèbre as well; they shared this statement with us:
It’s been 4 long years and a pandemic since we released our last album Einderlicht. When the world opened up again in 2021/2022 we started with a clean slate on what would become our fifth album After the Storm. Songwriting went smooth as ever, although we raised the bar once again. The aim to write an album that focusses on doom and atmosphere culminated in these 6 new tracks. Big melodies, soaring vocals, and a precise yet thoughtful rhythm section are the result. Combine this with the skillful talents of producer Martin Furia (Destruction, Nervosa,…) and we crafted what might be our best work to date.
On the lyrical department we focused on real life events and feelings of our vocalist Arne Vandenhoeck, who sings about his recent break-up, and a viral disease to name the main topics.
Recording sessions started in July 2023, just days after founding member and lead guitar player Peter Egberghs announced his departure from the band. He ended his 16 year long run with the band after the recording process and might have delivered his best work as a final goodbye. Luckily we found a worthy replacement in Fré De Schepper meanwhile. The latter already contributed a small piano piece for the new album’s intro. Speaking of a perfect transition, this surely is one.
So, while After the Storm is conceived as a break-up album, it quite literally is one in regards to the band itself too. It’s the last full length album of our line-up that lasted since 2013. We can’t wait to start a new chapter with this new album under our belt.
The March is coming… with the sound of DOOM!
The press materials for the new album rightly refer to Marche Funèbre as “Belgium’s monarchs of morose majesty”, and that, along with everything you’ve (hopefully) already read above, tells you much of what you need to know before listening, even if you’ve arrived here without previously encountering any of the band’s preceding four albums and other shorter works. But, as ominously promised, I want to share a few more thoughts about After the Storm.
Like many other bands, Marche Funèbre took their early inspiration from “The Peaceville Three”, but while following the path blazed by those bands they have cut their own one through the tangled woods. On their path, as revealed in the new album, they have crafted visions of shining brilliance as well as vast darkness, of poignant sorrow and desperate hopelessness, of gentle elegance and crushing might.
To create these visions they bring to bear ringing guitar leads that yearn and wail, riffs that groan and smash with granite weight, and a gripping array of vocal variations — frightening growls of gargantuan proportions, harrowing blackened screams of torment, strangled gasps, and impassioned singing that soars with spine-tingling effects (and could easily take a starring role in bands of many other genres, including ones far outside of metal).
They also repeatedly push and pull the music’s intensity, diverting into passages of gossamer lightness where the notes glisten and ring like monastic chimes (often joined by the heavy grumbling of the bass) but also bringing the hammers down with pulverizing impact or causing the music to rise up like a daunting monument that obscures the clouds.
In tandem with the stark contrasts they create, Marche Funèbre thread every one of these songs with melodies that strike an immediate emotional chord, and then turn out to endure. In other words, these songs have very big hooks in them! And they pack a hard punch too, combining mood with muscle, sometimes even segueing into big rocking grooves, chugging bass-lines, and start-stop jolts that will get your own muscles moving.
(Truth be told, a lot of these songs could get a lot of air-play on hard-rock stations if the band had stripped away the array of harsh vocals — and bless them for not doing that.)
To repeat, it’s very true that the album is often an experience of morose majesty. It’s never completely joyful, though it does channel the pleasures one might feel in the wistful remembrance of once-happy times, and it does manifest surges of defiant, heart-pounding resilience (“Devoid of Empathy” and the title song being prime examples, but not the only ones). But even when it brings the listener back into deeper shadows, the music can be so immense and so grand as to be statuesque in its tragedy (this happens again and again, but the crescendo of “Enter Emptiness” puts my heart in my throat every time I hear it).
In short, After the Storm is a classic example of an album you can lose yourself in, losing track of time as it pulls you along deeper into its duration, and probably still lost in thought after it ends but also equally tempted to go back and listen again very soon.
I also want to acknowledge that lots of listeners out there tend to find doom dull (sometimes I’m one of them), and for those people I want to assure you that on this album there’s never a dull minute.
Believe it or not, much more could still be said about After the Storm! But for those two or three of you who haven’t already started playing the music, now’s a good time to do that.
MARCHE FUNÈBRE:
Arne Vandenhoeck – Vocals
Boris Iolis – Bass/Vocals
Dennis Lefebvre – Drums
Kurt Blommé – Clean Vocals
Fré De Schepper – Guitars
*Guitars on After The Storm by Peter Egberghs
*Piano on After The Storm by Fré De Schepper
As noted above, After the Storm was produced, mixed, and mastered by Martin Furia (Destruction, Nervosa, Toxik, etc), and it is adorned by the cover art of the band’s long-term collaborator Brooke Shade.
Ardua Music will release After the Storm on orange and black vinyl, in a digipack CD edition, on orange cassette tape, and digitally. They recommend it for fans of Officium Triste, My Dying Bride, Paradise Lost, and Saturnus.
ARDUA MUSIC:
https://www.arduamusic.com/
https://arduamusic.bandcamp.com/album/after-the-storm
MARCHE FUNÈBRE:
https://linktr.ee/marchefunebre