originally written by Nick Kulczycki
It’s about time someone released a good doom death album! Grau Records out of Germany was fortunate enough to release Mourning Beloveth‘s fifth Studio album, A Murderous Circus, which is a well crafted piece of melancholy and depression. The last death doom album I can remember liking as much as Mourning Beloveth‘s A Murderous Circus would probably be Skepticism‘s Stormcrowfleet. Much like Skepticism, Mouring Beloveth presents a cascade of truly slothlike doom-laden chords over very emotional death metal vocals.
Some of Mourning Beloveth reminds me of Hypocrisy‘s Fourth Dimension album, primarily in the vocals and guitar work. One thing i would say about Mourning Beloveth in comparison to Hypocrisy and Skepticism is that they seem to have a better sense of melody in their compositions. It’s hard to explain, but there are a lot of very subtle elements used by Mourning Beloveth that I would have to say sound like progressive doom in the way that the structures are laid out in each track on this 70 minute plus full length. The are a lot of open chords used as well as dissonant octave patterns which are nice to hear from a death doom band.
The first track on A Murderous Circus, aptly titled, “The Apocalypse Machine” is a 14 minute journey into a hate filled canvas of isolation and loneliness. “The Apocalypse Machine” reminds me of Avernus from Chicago; older Avernus, back in their demo days. It’s very heavy sludge with down picked chords over very simple themes derived from the bass lines.
The production value on this album isn’t grandiose in relative terms to the 2005 standard. In my opinion, with the style of death doom metal, one doesn’t listen for a crisp production as opposed to creating an atmosphere for which to follow the emotion of the music. Most death doom i have listened to recently seems to represent more melodic oriented guitar playing and progressive drumming. My only complaint is that there is no reverb on the drums! I would just like to point out that i am not a drum tech, or expert on death doom, but you need to have some echo on the percussive aspect of this type of music.
It would be nice to have a lyric booklet handy because I believe this is a concept album on many levels. The progressions between each song on this album feel almost like a play. I guess I could compare this technique to some of the passages done on Arcturus‘s La Masquerade De Infernale.
If you are a fan of great brooding, epic, doom death in the vein of early My Dying Bride, Skepticism, and Hypocrisy, I recommend Mourning Beloveth. This album is an auditory trip through sadness and back.
