EVOKEN – shades of night descending LP splatter

lim. silver / black splatter vinyl

Evoken’s Funeral Doom/Death Metal debut EP remastered and reissued! Raw, bleak and essential!

Doom Metal, perhaps the most varied of all the metal genres, has been crossing over with plenty of other genres, and surprisingly often, the crossbreeding has been fertile. While the “funeral” brand of Doom Metal sounds like something that lacks the genetics to successfully breed with other metal genres, its nihilism works surpringly well when blended with slowed down Death Metal. Among the masters of that gruesome fusion are Evoken from the United States.

“Shades of Night Descending”is the first recording by Evoken, released in 1994, and for a debut recording, it is a surprisingly mature creation. The later works of Evoken have a thicker wall of sound and plenty of production tricks in them, but the deviations from the basic formula introduced here have been essentially more polishing that actual rethinking of the format.

Perhaps the music is of the same Funeral Death/Doom Metal variety as found on the later albums, all the way to the excellent “Antithesis of Light” and “A Caress of the Void”, but the unrefined production on “Shades of Night Descending”, with its barren character and almost heavy-handedly echoing soundscape, brings out the nihilism of funeral doom more effectively than the more professional production jobs of the later albums. The atmosphere on this recording is bleaker, even less forgiving, and perhaps even more desperate and repulsive in a positive sense than what can be found on “A Caress of the Void”. Even the considerably melodic guitar part in “Towers of Frozen Dusk” and other sweeter spots on the demo have a taste of ash and feel of pumice in them; Evoken walks on a musical lava field here, and manages to paint the true meaning of funeral doom in slow Death Metal colours on the canvas.

In comparison to their later works, this is perhaps the essence of the whole band in the original, pure form. Considering the year and the fact that this recording was recorded by a very recently formed band, the originality and the merciless exploration of new fields of abrasive nihilism are astounding. What’s more, the songwriting and technical performance sound exceptionally evolved. However, it was to take another four years before they managed to release “Embrace the Emptiness”, perhaps the world simply wasn’t ready for this yet at that point.

Tracks:

1. Intro
2. In Graven Image
3. Shades Of Night Descending
4. Towers Of Frozen Dusk
5. Into The Autumn Shade

Genres: Doom Metal, Death Metal

GPSR Information:
Manufacturer:
Hammerheart Records BV
P.O. Box 277, 6300 AG Valkenburg, Netherlands
info(at)hammerheart.com