Angmodnes – The Weight of Eternity

07/11/2022

Hailing from Utrecht the Netherlands, the Greek mythology inspired duo of Angmodnes have released their first EP ‘The Weight of Eternity’ a good month ago. These three songs were originally written for their other band Apotelesma. However, those songs turned out not to fit that well with the rest of their output, being very funeral doom oriented, compared to their main band which is residing in a bit more up tempo gothic doom realms.

The three tracks on display here are indeed primarily inspired by the likes of Shape of Despair, Evoken or Ahab. Each song is a slowly crawling massive doom opus, easily clocking around 10 minutes or more. If you like any of the three bands I just mentioned then you should definitely check out this EP.

Starting with the cover, the gloomy artwork features an apocalyptic landscape in many shades of grey. This triptych of tristesse takes the melancholic majesty typically found in Finnish funeral doom, with grief laden keyboards and a slowly cascading tsunami of massive guitars. But it’s not just an impenetrable wall of distorted noise, each of these three lengthy funeral marches are covered with petals of morose, melodic guitar leads.

Vocally, the duties are divided between the traditional low growl grunting that you will find in this dismal genre and the somewhat less usual clean vocals that particularly Ahab has employed on their last few releases. Adding in a guest singer, we also get some heavenly female vocals reminiscent of Shape of Despair or Unholy.

Not unfitting for a slow burning genre like doom, the three songs on display here have been no less than nine years in development and it shows, in the most positive way. I’ve been throwing around references from the cream of the crop in doom left and right, and in all honestly, these songs can stand shoulder to shoulder with them as pallbearers of the funeral doom coffin.

Obviously, this duo is not breaking much new ground here, apart from the fact that they are one of few bands in the lowlands that play this particular offshoot of doom, except Faal maybe. Even though it’s not actually featured on the EP itself, you really ought to check out their cover of The Cure’s ‘The Figurehead’ as well here below. Here more than ever, his clean singing reminds me a lot of their Dutch compatriots The Wounded, who have never truly got the recognition they deserve.