(written by Islander)
Some people are still alive who remember a time in the early ’90s (because they witnessed it) when the now well-defined genres of extreme metal weren’t so sharply separated, when there was a commingling of styles such as gothic doom, black metal, and melodeath. Others who weren’t contemporaneous witnesses have experienced those moments by listening to such records as Paradise Lost‘s Gothic, Katatonia‘s Dance of December Souls, or Rotting Christ‘s A Dead Poem.
It is no coincidence that the Brazilian duo of Marlon Combat and Carlos Misanthropic chose A Dead Poem as the name of their band, because their aim was to grasp and revive the intertwined aesthetics of doom and black metal manifested by records such as those.
Their first efforts in that direction were captured in their Absence of Life EP self-released last year (and then released in a limited CD edition early his year by Cold Art Industry Records). That caught the attention of the eclectic Personal Records, which is now primed to release A Dead Poem‘s debut album Abstract Existence on December 13th.
Some of the songs from the album have already surfaced (and opened lots of eyes and ears), and today we’re bringing you another one, a stunner of a song named “In Forgotten Dimensions“.
As you might expect from what we’ve already written, this new song is a multi-faceted one, but even more so than you might be expecting. In its changing phases, it’s deliriously wild, it opens itself to melodic tendrils of misery, it becomes classically elegant, it heaves the earth, it spirals toward heart-in-your-throat zeniths of magnificence, and it features extraordinary vocal intensity, non-stop.
After a few sombre bars, fire-bright but cutting riffage wildly swirls above skull-snapping beats and subterranean low-frequency undulations. Those ravaging vocals arrive, a voracious amalgam of savage snarls and fierce screams, and the swirling guitar begins to trace agonies, a different kind of delirium.
Suddenly that’s cut short, replaced by the vivid dance of classical acoustic guitars with a Spanish flair, eventually backed by the equally vivid interplay of bass and drums. In the next phase, those fiery guitars seem to wretchedly wail in pain, in tandem with monstrous roars and gritty snarls, and backed by further gripping work by the rhythm section.
The music aches, but it’s never less than electrifying, especially so when an extended guitar solo beautifully and soulfully whirls and spirals, a different kind of classicism, metal this time.
It truly is a stunning song, and it culminates in a vocal chorus that’s truly frightening.
Personal Records will release Abstract Existence on CD and digital formats, and they’re available for pre-order now. Below you’ll also find a stream of one of those previously released album tracks, “Before the Rising Sun” — also a stunner.
PRE-ORDER:
https://www.personal-records.com/product/pre-order-a-dead-poem-cd/
https://personal-records.bandcamp.com/album/abstract-existence
A DEAD POEM:
https://www.facebook.com/adeadpoem.doom