![]() Bryntse and Crister Olsson excel at crafting old school doom riffs and melancholy harmonies, and Anesidora is weighted down with them. He reminds me of Fvneral Fvkk’s Simon Schorneck at times, and some of these songs are quite similar to what Schorneck’s clerical crew did on their stellar Carnal Confessions opus. He delivers great feeling to the very buzzkilling lyrics and lets you believe the pain he’s expressing is genuine. While I wouldn’t say he’s blessed with the most versatile of voices, he plays to his strengths and sings in clear tones full of emotion. Speaking of Daniel Bryntse, he does his best job yet here. This allows Bryntse’s voice to cut through like a laser into your sadboi heart. ![]() The production is quite good, with a true heaviness in the guitars and a goodly amount of low-end rumble. With most cuts in the 5-6 minute window, you get the message but the band doesn’t beat you to death with extended plods. At a lean 46 minutes, Anesidora feels tight and fast-moving for a doom album. “Open Your Mind” is an oddly hooky doomsters that keeps bouncing around inside my head, with slick moments that remind of both early-era Tad Morose and While Heaven Wept. “Forgive Me” bears the mark of While Heaven Wept in its extra depressing and fragile angst, and you will feel the character’s pain and fear if you focus on the lyrics and have a shred of empathy. Without a weak selection anywhere to be found, everything falls in the very good-to-excellent ballpark. The chorus is huge and poignant and gets me right in the feelz every damn time. That bottle, it greets me like an old friend” conveying a life in shambles. ![]() Despair drips off every downtrodden note, with lyrics like “I pour myself another drink. It’s the kind of classic doom song I’m hardwired to love, and love it I do. Album centerpiece “In Abundance” is the big star here, borrowing many pages from the Big Book of Candlemass for a romping, stomping journey through existential depression. There’s a big Fvneral Fvkk vibe present and effective death vocals arrive at a key juncture. “Monotonic Screams” is a gripping and emotive slab o’ doom with heavy riffs and plaintive vocals surging and receding like the tides. And there are other major doom nuggets contained within Anesidora as well. It’s the kind of song you love on first spin and it just gets better with each listen. The heavy riffs and melodic harmonies are well conceived, trading the heavy crunch for the melodic trill at key moments for maximum impact. Daniel Bryntse’s forlorn vocals quake with emotion, with Crister Olsson joining in at times to add more of a raw, gruff edge. I came in expecting high quality, but could it possibly top their last effort? Well, Anesidora certainly gives Dystopia a hard run for the money.Īs with last time, Isole greet you at the door with a mailed fist to the melon with massive opener “The Song of the Whales.” It’s the quintessential doom song. And it seems the band wanted to experiment ever so slightly with their sound this time, dialing back the heaviness a tad and leaning into a more emotional, mood-weighted style. ![]() 2019s Dystopia was a massive album that I loved dearly and still return to regularly, so naturally, I had big expectations for Anesidora, their eighth full-length. Double dipping is fine, but it seems clear that their true strength resides in the slow and sorrowful. So good have these cats become in the doom space, that it can be easy to forget the same crew also functions as Viking/black metal act Ereb Altor. With 2 of those 3 big acts now out of action, Isole have steadily ascended the doom hierarchy ladder as they continued to improve with time. Isole have slowly but inexorably become one of my favorite doom bands over the last 10 years, reliably delivering big albums in the Candlemass, Solitude Aeturnus, While Heaven Wept tradition.
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