On Convocation’s debut, there was a particular Evoken vibe to songs like “Ruins of Ourselves” and “Allied POWs,” however Ashes Coalesce noticed them transferring towards a sound extra their very own, constructed on delicate temper shifts and a multi-layered vocal assault courtesy of Waste of Area Orchestra’s Marko Neuman. Neuman is in related type on No Daybreak for the Caliginous Night time—extra on that in a bit—however “delicate” is not a phrase that applies to the music. In truth, maintain up that phrase to No Daybreak… and it’ll soften right into a streak of fireside like an area rock burning up upon its descent into Earth’s ambiance. By the point you attain the midway level in opening observe “Graveless but Lifeless,” you’ve heard swirling organs, ominous violins, harmonized choirs, riffs that measure their gravity on the size of celestial our bodies, and Neuman’s monumental dying roar. The entire thing retains escalating like a lightweight rising in depth till, practically blinding, a biblically correct angel emerges with its six wings and concentric wheels stuffed with eyes and a number of heads and burnished bronze appendages and it bellows in an inhuman voice, “B̴̧̈E̴͝ͅ ̸̫̈Ń̷̦Ò̸̭T̸̜̈́ ̸̟̄A̷͈͌F̵̯̊R̴̳̽Ā̷͇I̸̜͊D̶͈͛.”
No Daybreak… maintains this monumental scale for its full 48-minute runtime, however good songwriting and a symmetrical album construction hold all that grandeur from feeling one-note. With the instrumental observe “Between Aether and Land” performing as a type of intermission, the 2 tracks earlier than it current directly elegant and terrifying dying doom that by no means dips beneath white-knuckle depth. Whereas Convocation might interject passages of fresh guitar strains and overt gentleness, just like the one discovered midway via “Atychiphobia,” however these are will-o’-the-wisps, false lights within the darkness they use to lure you into compliance earlier than unleashing their nastiest riffs and most harrowing tectonic shifts. After the pivotal instrumental, the final two tracks are far more funereal. “Lepers and Derelicts” is the standout, if one have to be chosen, with its lugubrious aura and methodically measured guitar line motif, like a bell tolling over a cemetery.
As with 2020’s Ashes Coalesce, Neuman’s impressively variegated vocal efficiency lifts the already stellar materials on No Daybreak… to a stage past that of the band’s dying doom friends. Blessed with a really perfect dying roar, he actually is aware of when to let it fly, like when he expends each ounce of vein-popping vitality as a counterpoint to the album’s most historically mournful instrumentation on nearer “Procession.” In the meantime, his judiciously utilized cleans crash via the opiate haze of “Lepers and Derelicts” to hold the tune to giddy heights in its last minutes. Rock stable as his efficiency is all through, essentially the most unforgettable second is when he discharges a blood-freezing banshee wail in “Atychiphobia,” a trick he repeats to carry “Lepers and Derelicts” freefalling again to earth in its last seconds. Early in my listening, I thought-about the instrumental observe a disadvantage. Now I see it as a theatrical intermission; a vital respite from the in any other case unrelenting depth Neuman brings to LL’s mission.
I beloved each of Convocation’s earlier data. With No Daybreak for the Caliginous Night time, LL and Neuman have accomplished their transformation from practitioners of spectacular, if well-trod dying doom to a novel voice within the ranks funerophiles. It is a towering celebration of dying’s enormity, packaged within the heaviest and most shimmering of vessels.
Score: 4.5/5.0
DR: 9 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Everlasting Spew Records
Web sites: everlastingspewrecords.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/ConvocationDoom
Releases Worldwide: November twenty fourth, 2023
