Originally written by Brady Humbert.
Doom. Any music that can drive someone to kill themselves is okay with me. This is my way of being “green” as I think overpopulation is a massive issue that mankind won’t address. Evoken flies the flag of slow and plodding funeral doom. No blast beats or sweeps or any of that silliness. This music wants you to be in a cold dark place for a long long time and A Caress Of The Void puts you there with ease. Reminiscent of greats like Thergothon, Winter, Morgion, Catacombs and the slower moments of Incantation’s career, Evoken plays slow and hypnotizing funeral doom with precision.
Now, I should note I’m not especially seasoned with this band and I can’t really compare it to previous releases. But, this seems like a great place to start. There’s just enough tempo changes amidst the droning, A-tuned guitars to keep things interesting. There are bits of clean and acoustic guitar smatterings all over this thing. But what really ties the ship together is the droning keyboards. They hover over the music and actually help with the droning effect that Evoken is trying to capture here.
“Mare Erthyraeum” is a brilliant instrumental that’s a bit melodic and could almost be mistaken for an old My Dying Bride song; very atmospheric. “Of Purest Absolution” has a bit of the Incantation waltz to it and is the most outright death metal song on the album. All the while, no blasts to be found. “Astray in Eternal Light” is a brilliantly constructed song, tying in some of the best keyboards on the album with some spoken word.
I can’t say enough good about this album. At the moment, this is the kind of metal I’m into. There’s no adrenaline in it, there’s no intensity, there’s no blasting or guitar solos. All that stuff is fine, but true “heaviness” is found not in speed but in density. It seems that Evoken has captured the essence of what that is here. In a word, brilliant.
