Review Summary: Evoken just does not miss.
Funeral doom is a genre that isn’t easy to get established in. The music itself, in nature, is extremely inaccessible, incredibly monotonous, and by all accounts on paper, a rather “boring” genre. Boring, that is, if all you want is riffs in your metal. Yes, we all know riffs are important, but funeral doom is meant to transport your mind and body to the deepest, darkest depths of your soul. There is a core group of bands that pioneered this magical sound. Bands like Skepticism, Thergothon, Esoteric, dISEMBOWELMENT, and these beautiful New Jersey natives, Evoken.
These guys have been creating petrifying, morgue-friendly funeral doom (that borders on death doom at times) for over 30 years now and their formula is quite simple; pound you into submission with aquatic keys and ominously heavy riffage that makes you feel like your 10,000 feet below sea level.
Mendacium is their 7th full-length album and they have no plans on reinventing the wheel. All Evoken needs at this point in time is a few tweaks here and there. Take, for example, about 3 and a half minutes into ‘Lauds’; an organ plays hellishly as menacing tribal drums lull you into a trance right before another agonizingly slow riff punches you in the gut.
Evoken has always been the best at putting the “funeral” in funeral doom. Their music always sounds like certain death is peering just around the corner, just waiting for the time to strike. Even the two-minute interlude ‘Prime’ sounds like an Arabic ritual summoning a spirit from an ancient burial ground with tribal acoustics and faint flutes in the background before leading into ‘Terce’. This is almost a ballad for this band with gothic leads and deep croons. Evoken has always had a knack for making those clean, echoing riffs sound as paranormal and chasmal as possible.
Where I feel
Mendacium differs from the rest of their discography is that it offers more of a romantic and vampyric atmosphere than their other albums. The intro to ‘Sext’ wouldn’t sound out of place on a My Dying Bride album with its sensual chords and seducing spoken word vocals. The album itself is still heavy as a ton of bricks, but it has a lightness to it that doesn’t touch the suffocating atmospheres of albums like
Antithesis of Light or
Atra Mors. Not saying that as a negative at all because, as I mentioned earlier, it’s refreshing to see little changes after so many years.
One thing is clear, along with the other bands mentioned above, Evoken is a staple of the funeral doom genre. Without them, a lot of these bands would be completely lost. They’ve mastered the ability to conquer wickedness and beauty all at the same time. No other band in this genre can awaken the inner demon in the listener quite like these guys can. With that being said, while not being in the top-tier of their incredible discography,
Mendacium is definitely colossal in it’s own right.
