Endless Journey - Endless Journey/Melancholy

Ever wondered if a band could sound weirdly depressing? Enter Endless Journey! Very little is known about the band except that they are from Russia and the members are part of the project, Mehafelon. Their debut album is a grim, cold example of what blackened doom metal can be. Sporting distorted guitars, harsh, tortured snarls, and slow, plodding drums are what make up the musical style of this mysterious band. It isn't pretty, but then again blackened doom metal rarely is. There's some weird stuff on this album that isn't even doom, but it's always nice to have stranger variations to keep listeners on their toes.

The album opens up with "Endless Journey," a distorted, haunting piece with long chords, harsh guitar tones that convey a very black metal feeling, evil snarls in the forefront, and simple, loud drumming with plenty of cymbal work. The musical structure is very repetitive, but effective to creating a harsh, cold atmosphere. Cold and grim after all is the name of the game, as many of the songs have to do with winter and darkness. "Sorrow" is also very distorted, but in a different way. The vocals take most of the distorted credit, sounding even more raw and darker than before, with the guitars sounding slightly cleaner, but still mournful. The fact the vocals are so distorted and in the front of the other instruments creates the perfect shroud of distortion over everything else, creating a very fuzzy, ambient haze. This pretty much sets the tone for the rest of the blackened doom tracks on the album; each one is hazy and dark with plenty of evil injected.

"Cold Pt. 1" is where things get interesting. The track isn't doom or black metal at all. It's very simple, upbeat keyboard with industrial beats. Sounding completely out of this world, and misplaced on the album, it's a very short interlude that destroys the mood of the album for a short bit. Maybe it was meant to shake off the feeling of the rest of the music so listeners can get all depressed again when the darkness envelopes them again; desensitization is never a good thing when it comes to music. "Depression" is an odd name for the following track is it's mostly instrumental, and much cleaner than all the others. The tempo is faster and the music sounds a lot more folky, like something Agalloch would do. The sparingly used vocals are a low, clean mutter before launching into the grim snarl that fans are so familiar with.

"Cold Pt. 2" is still electronically influenced, but there's some distorted guitar involved and the drumming is more tribal and percussive than industrial. Again,and interesting curveball. "And Lets Snow" is a return to the gloom and doom, but it's more ambient than the rest of the tracks due to the wintery wind sample that goes through the quieter keyboards section. There's plenty of doom laced chords, with the vocals sounding worse than ever in the sense that he sounds like he is being strangled while singing. Very ugly, very dark, and completely effective, if not overdone a little. "Melancholy" closes the album with plenty of hissing distortion, with the keyboards floating with the guitars creating a very dreamy atmosphere tinged with the harshness of winter, as expected from Endless Journey so far. The darkness is complete. Overall it's decent harsh, blackened doom for fans in the vein of Black Autumn, Xasthur, Skogen, or An Autumn For Crippled Children

  1. Endless Journey
  2. Sorrow
  3. Snow On Hands
  4. Cold, Pt. 1
  5. Depression
  6. Cold, Pt. 2
  7. ... And Lets Snow...
  8. Melancholy

Backfire Productions
Reviewer: Colin McNamara
May 8, 2010

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