(Vasilis Xenopoulos, a guest writer from Greece who has contributed to NCS in the past, rejoins us with this review of the new EP by the Greek band Lachrymose, which was released in May and is an exception to the “rule” in our site’s title.)

Doom metal and tragedy are intertwined. The music, slow and heavy, leads gradually towards redemption and serves as a means for the unfolding of the stories of the pain and woes of man. Doom metal is a dance, a bleak and sorrowful waltz that sings of the suffering of man while at times praises the spirit of revolt and the pursuit of salvation.

In 2015 Lachrymose released the story of a witch who was accused and sentenced to the pyre for the crime of defiance against the dogma of religion. Carpe Noctum is doom metal that brings to mind the aesthetics of Paradise Lost in the times of Gothic and Icon. Through their music we follow her journey, as it is performed by vocalist Hel, from life to death and her return from the dead by a necromancer’s ritual.

But something went terribly wrong. When the thin veil between the living and the dead opened, vengeful spirits passed through and got inside her now living body. Her mind remained in the medium world, between the living and the dead, where everything and nothing is true, where spirits dwell in the fog of the underworld. Continue reading »