Golgotha renew their doom metal music on their fifth album, Mors Diligentis.

The roots of Golgotha stretch back to 1992 when the Spanish doom metal band was created by Vicente J. Payá. They started recording music within a year, and demos, EPs, and long-players followed, as did line-up changes. The band went on hiatus in 1998 and, after briefly reemerging in 2005, Golgotha returned with staying power in 2014, cracking out the well-regarded Erasing The Past album in 2019. Now we have another incarnation with a shake-up in the vocals. The band for Mors Diligentis is María J. Lladó (clean vocals), Miriam Vallés (guttural vocals), Vicente J. Payá (guitar), Andrew Spinosa (bass), and Tomeu Crespí (drums).

The new record has eight tracks, opening with “My Burden.” The pace is slow and deliberate, unhurried. The first vocals are melodic and crystal clear. Hard on the heels of the lyrical singing is the harsh vocalization that presses home the dire nature of the conveyed emotions. The voices alternate throughout the song in an obvious insistence on the duality of darkness and light – light, after all, casts a shadow behind anything it encounters. “Our Trust Betrayed” proceeds at a brighter clip, although its tone is more actively ominous than the lead song. It has the broad appeal of a single while maintaining the essential dreariness of doom and gothic music. Nicely done.

Every song on the album has heft, and there are a couple that are particularly heavy doom pieces, like “Farewell Humanity.” This one is my favorite of the set for its pace, length, and deliberateness. It matters that the guttural vocals begin the song while the clean vocals follow later. There are also great pieces that flash out at a charging pace, like “Waiting For My Death,” that serve to variegate and deepen the texture of the album. The music overall has a high level of polished production and, while striving to broadcast on the doom wavelength, effectively straddles adjacent pathways. Recommended.

Mors Diligentis is out now through Xtreem Music. Hit up the links below.

Links.

Golgotha website, http://www.golgothaofficial.com/

Bandcamp, https://xtreemmusic.bandcamp.com/album/mors-diligentis

Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/GolgothaOfficialBand/

Xtreem Music, http://www.xtreemmusic.com/

© Wayne Edwards