Shades Of Night Descending

Although it was officially made available for the first time in 1996, Evoken's debut EP, Shades of Night Descending, originated in demos recorded a full two years earlier, thus confirming it as an even more pioneering work in the grand scheme of the funeral doom movement, which is widely acknowledged to have been fathered around that same time by Norway's Funeral (hence the genre's christening), Australia's Disembowelment, and Finland's Skepticism and Thergothon. For those not familiar with this extreme subgenre hatched from the slower-paced branch -- doom -- of heavy metal's family tree, it means that Evoken perform their often drawn-out songs at positively glacial tempos, using wanton guitar distortion, echoing drums, atmospheric synthesizers, and bowel-loosening vocal croaks to impart a virtually intolerable sense of despair. Were it not for a few, very sporadic anomalies like the thrashing intro to "Towers of Frozen Dusk," and the forlorn, almost pitiful, melodic chimes adorning the epic title track and album-best closing statement, "Into the Autumn Shade," all would be infinite desolation and dejection within the suffocating slabs of sound tectonics grinding against each other here. Of course, as physically punishing and emotionally crushing as it all may seem, the temptation to face and conquer such horrifying prospects are precisely the appeal that draws daring musical adventurers again and again to Evoken's forbidding catacombs, of which there would be many following this still uneven but nevertheless groundbreaking first step. ~ Eduardo Rivadavia