Entry 747 - Marche Funebre - Einderlicht

Style: Melodic doom/death metal

Primary Emotions/Themes: Sitting down in a familiar looking chair, it's not yours but it certainly feels close enough to be

Thoughts: There's something to be said for the early doom bands. Pentagram, Candlemass, Trouble... all of them had a swagger to them that you don't see anymore. The magic is seems to be gone from those early days of the genre. 

Marche Funebre doesn't quite match the majesty of those early bands, but damn they sure get close. There is a class to this music that is really rare in the doom metal genre these days. It seems like most doom bands are more worried about sounding the heaviest, the most stoned, or the slowest... song writing sometimes seems to be a secondary effect.... at least to these ears.

Einderlicht feels like it's written with intent. It feels like it's meant for people who like good music rather than any of the previous ways to make the music more extreme. It sounds like the band is having fun. It sounds like they actually enjoy playing the music they create.

These songs are long, six of them to be exact. Just under an hour. The pacing is quite varied. Sometimes the band lets it rip with double bass and even a blast beat, other times it's a slow and heavy as funeral doom. The band never settles in on one pace for too long though, only what the song calls for at the time.

The riffs are the real meat of the album.  The riffs always have a deep and heavy leaning, but there is a sense of melody that hearkens back to the mid eighty's. The riffs groove, they have me bobbing my head. The music captures my attention and holds it - especially the guitar solos, man those things have some heft to them.

The vocals though. This is where the band really pulls themselves back in time. While most of the albums vocals are clean there are some death growls mixed in.The harsh vocals tend to be used more at the climaxes of songs rather than dominating the entire run time. They are fine for what they are, but the cleans are the true star here.

Einderlicht is a damn fine album. It's one of those albums I picked up on release and forgot I owned it. I'm glad I revisited it, because now I have another thick slice of doom to put onto the turntable when the mood strikes.

Written March 28th 2024