Denmark’s Woebegone Obscured make their full-length debut with Deathstination, a five-track CD that combines funeral doom and drone with black and death metal. The idea for the band and their debut CD came to drummer, vocalist, and guitarist D Woe (Skinned Beyond Recognition and Tronraner) when he was committed to a mental asylum. It was while so committed that his loathing in depression and suicidal thoughts led him to lyrical inspiration.
The predominant genre on display is funeral doom, as the pace here feels like moving through dense rock—painful, slow, with the scars never lifted. D Woe sets down long flashes of percussion, with vehement and mid-paced master blasters that seemingly echo forever. Black hole K Woe handles the bass, making the woofer moan and drone with licks that will rattle even the most stalwart shingles.
K, D, and M Woe all handle the guitars, which rip a page out of the drone files and slow things down even more. Riffs move like mud in a swamp, with an occasional hook managing to escape to the surface, only to consume itself. Leads are almost non-existent, with notes slamming into each other to evoke shadows of harmony. Melody is a key ingredient, as on the track “Maestitia” (Latin for “grief”), but always there is the buzz and the whirr, enveloping each track with obsidian darkness. Then there are D Woe’s vocals, which are gruff and echo from the crypt itself. Clean vocals are also used, and these are filled with haunting pain and anger.
With one exception (“Stalactites”), tracks are more than eight minutes long. Lyrics hint at the stages of insanity and the cosmic nature of the mind, its vacuoles the very regions of inner space. “Coils of Inane Comatose” lead to “Deathscape,” with “A Gust of Demention” (get it?) thrown in for good measure. The CD comes housed in a slipcase complete with a 12-page full-color booklet with lyrics, for those interested in examining the words of a lunatic.
Deathstination is for the dreamers and those who claim outwardly that they are sane. If you are not haunted, you will be. The truly sane—and dull—should not bother.
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