Evoken: Promo 2002 (2002)

Every few months or so I dive back into my funeral doom obsession, which was initially kick-started by Ahab and now is primarily driven by groups like Bell Witch and Lycus.  It is not an easy genre to really get into.  The songs are not catchy at all and they are often incredibly long.  And with how slow and drawn-out the albums are, it definitely does not make good driving music.  But nevertheless, I love funeral doom.  And I have been recently trying to add more albums to my collection.

Which brings me to this one, the promo released by Evoken, one of the bigger names in funeral doom metal and a band that I first experienced during the infancy of my funeral doom obsession.  This promo was recently reissued on cassette to allow for a wider audience to acquire it and it is damn impressive.  Two of the songs appear on the Antithesis of Light album released a couple years later, the rest do not appear anywhere else in the band's catalog that I can see.

The music of Evoken is typically more somber and atmospheric even than some other funeral doom metal bands.  This release opens up with a monolithic instrumental track that sets the dark mood for the rest of the album.  Featuring heavy, distorted guitar riffs in the background of cleaner chord progressions, it provides a solid introduction to what is to come.  My favorite track on the album is "The Last of Vitality".  About midway through, that song kicks into a faster (though still very slow) rumbling riff with some damn impressive drumwork.  After a minute or so of that, it descends into more dissonant chord progressions and some spoken-word vocals, though the drums are still playing more of a faster-paced fill.  Atmosphere is everything for a band in this genre and the atmosphere of that song is as tortured and pained as it gets.  And the music is almost beautiful in the melodic sections of the utterly spine-chilling "Antithesis of Light".

Evoken is always one of the bands I recommend to those looking into funeral doom (Ahab is usually the other one).  They are a little more accessible than some other bands with some truly pretty sonicscapes at times and dark and somber at others.  They are still not an easy band to get into, but a little moreso than a group like Bell Witch.  This would be a pretty good starting point for the band.