Doom duo Mordom play for the hopeless and the dead on their new album Cry of The Dying World.
Max Hoffman and Nathan Gonzalez got together a couple years ago to lay down music outside of the band Cessation, calling the project Mordom. They released their first album in 2020, Eternal Solitude – it contains two long tracks, each with multiple movements. The new album has a similar set-up with three long pieces and a surprising fourth.
I was expecting to hear funeral doom given the work of Cessation, and the opening track, “Narcosis,” fulfills that promise at the gate. Slow, somber, heavy music that is quiet at first. The big riff and grating vocals drop to shake the world but the pace does not quicken. About four minutes in there is an explosion, a sort of seizure where the instruments and vocals erupt in a massive thrashing. Then back to the funeral. There are more explosions, an ambient section, and an even creepier element right at the end. Solid crushing doom with landmines and flashbacks.
“Betrayed” is a little more on the traditional funeral doom side in that it begins with the louder heavy. The pace quickens and there is a beautiful acoustic movement in the middle that leads to a melancholy guitar before bringing back the heavy. “Fire” is the shortest song on the album at only five and a half minutes. It is also a ballad with clean, gentle vocals and acoustic guitar. I did not see that one coming. It is an interesting choice and it fits right in with rest of the music in the set.
The final track is “The Mausoleum.” This epic composition runs nearly eighteen minutes and I could have listened longer. The combination of unusual percussion (for funeral doom), acoustic passages, ambient moments, and shrieking black metal interludes all housed in the firmament of the heaviest doom metal speaks to my musical predilections. This is a great album and I am looking forward to more from Mordom. Recommended.
Cry of The Dying World is out now through Transylvanian Recording. Touch the links below.
Links.
Bandcamp, https://transylvaniantapes.bandcamp.com/album/mordom-cry-of-the-dying-world
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