Loss - Despond
Nashville Doomsters Loss write long songs, but it takes them even longer to actually get the album out. Despond is a debut full-length seven years in the making. And if you want to knit pick, it only contains three new songs (not counting the intro/outro, and two instrumental segues). Two tracks here originally appeared on the Life Without Hope… Death Without Reason demo, and another is from the split with Worship. Okay, that’s as much as I’m going to bitch about because I actually love this album more than I hate life. They have vastly stepped their game up. I have Deathgasm’s pressing of said demo, and it was just okay. The production was a little too crude to suit Funeral Doom and, sadly for me, the bonus cover of Katatonia’s “Brave” -albeit done well- was live and therefore even more crude sounding. Apparently these guys have spent every day of that seven years honing their craft to perfection, as Despond shimmers with beautiful negativity in its crushing, surreal heaviness. The production flaws have all been ironed out. The aforementioned older cuts sound a million times better, with the elegantly titled, “Cut Up, Depressed and Alone,” stealing the show. Loss weave the saddest clean guitar licks into their oppressively brutal epics. Imagine Pink Floyd jamming with Ahab! The bestial, suicidal mourning that haunts every passing second of this hour-long journey through human suffering never once sounds forced or faked, the common trappings of the bands of this ilk who fail. This is the soundtrack to pure depression, and quite possibly the finest Funeral Doom offering any American band have or ever will contribute to the scene. No foolies.
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