Released - 1999 on Relapse
Members -
Jeremy Peto - Bass, Vocals
Dwayne Boardman - Guitars
Rhett Davis - Drums
Gary Griffith - Guitar, Keyboards
Serpentine Scrolls/Decent to Arawn begins this album in one of the creepiest ways I have ever heard. Church bells, humming and gregorian chants with winds sounds. Then a bass part. The calm before the storm. But it builds instead. Slowly adding instruments and vocals and slowly fading out the opening. It is slow and methodical, beginning with clean vocals, almost spoken word and then fading into a death growl. The song just builds and builds and all of a sudden you realize that this is some heavy music. And then, it goes back to something much like the beginning. There is some dual guitar work but I can't call it impressive because it's doom metal and thus fairly slow. And then out of that a black metal noise from the singer. He is very diverse I must say. This first track is great because it has the first half that does the build then it basically restarts but is much quicker about changin parts. I like both halves very much.
Onto
Canticle. This song is more like the second half of Serpentine Scrolls/Decent to Arawn. It has some cool but simple piano parts, nice guitars and great vocals. It sounds like battle music basically. The way the guitars build and then thunder around you. Great song.
Solinari follows this and is basically a very atmospheric guitar and bass song. A filler I suppose but also very good. Reminds me of Tool's Eon Blue Apocolypse. Then we get
Nightfall Eternal, the 11 minute epic or atmosphere, crushing guitars and brutal vocals. Despite the repetition of many parts the drummers constant fills keep things interesting. There are alos many great dynamic shifts here, switching from lead to feather. That is the biggest similarity between Morgion and Opeth. If you don't get the entire album (which you should) get this song.
All The Glory is a bit different a feel. It feels like a less thought about song. It is probably my least favorite song on the album. Towards the end though, it picks up by slowing down and gettign quieter before flowing perfectly into
All The Loss. This song begins with a pretty cool guitar part joined by quiet vocals and strings then drums. It moves faster than most of the other songs too. I suppose it would be the ballad of the album as it never really gets heavy until the last 3/4 of the song. It is a great track and really helps All The Glory look less bad.
Blight feels like it can't decide if it wants to explode or not for the first minute or so and then decides not to relying on slow, clean guitar chords that fade into something heavier but then falling back to simple clean guitar riffs again. The song decides it wants to build up to heaviness but relies on the melancholy feel for the weight more than the level of distortion.
The Last Sunrise is basically movie or good video game music. It does, have an apocolyptic feel but not the type you'd assume. Not the thundering fire and brimstone but a more sad reflection on the fact that we're all going to die. It is an instrumental.
This album is killer. Probably my favorite Morgion album.
I highly recommend it.
