Urania - Hieros Gamos (2015)

   "Hieros Gamos" by Urania could be described shortly as death/doom or funeral doom at its best. The appearance of such excellent albums seemingly from nothing became more frequent from the late '00s. Compared to the '90s trends this tendency keeps forming the subgenre to a heavier direction, that's basically its core essence.
   Urania's music includes a lot of funeral doom influences, that are represented in very long heavy riffs, extremely extended song lengths and strong atmosphere. Esoteric, Thergothon and Skepticism should be mentioned first of all if it's about possible direct influences. However, the songs are heavy and noisy on death/doom level, and the themes are often switching to death/doom as well, therefore the atmospheric sound couldn't take over. The role of instruments and atmosphere are balanced. The combination of rough sound and melancholy is overwhelmingly effective how it should be, and able to guide the listener through on "Hieros Gamos" seemingly with ease, though the album doesn't really count as the easiest album to listen to. And this is exactly where the excellence of this record lies: making such a heavy journey smooth and not falling into miserable monotony meanwhile. Strongly recommended for the lovers of funeral doom and death/doom!

Hanged Ghost - The Attraction of Oblivion (2013)

   Hanged Ghost debuted in 2011 by "Knowledge of the Occult", a rehearsal quality record. Their music showed kinda mixed influences, that's not the easiest thing to figure out for two reasons. 

   First of all because of their style pick, which is basically funeral doom. And the funeral doom they play is definitely not easy to go into. Extended themes during even more extended song lengths, monotonous, endless suffering in its most extreme form. At the other hand the poor quality is also not helping. The noisy heaviness based riffs doesn't prevail as they used to in funeral doom, and the sound is more relatable to black metal. Therefore by listening to the debut, it's difficult to decide if the sound was intentionally like that, or it just came from the rehearsal quality. Things are more clear on "The Attraction of Oblivion", since the sound was better, but kept the same tendency. Funeral doom's essential slow, down-pulling themes not necessarily making any specific distinguishing line between black and death metal features, especially if the selected sound is strongly atmospheric and echoing. So both could function next to each other unnoticed. On the side of the sound, occasionally some quite old school black metal themes showing up too, of course in slower version. To the more complete black metal influenced impression  the vocals are assisting too, when deep growling switches to higher toned cawing. And it happens quite frequently, therefore the blackened touch became one of the Hanged Ghost's main features. These characteristics working pretty well together to highlight desperate hopelessness, and able to easily bring up the most negative feelings from the listener. The album might be pretty enjoyable for the fans of funeral doom!

Decayed - Nokthurnaal (2001)

   Usually when new music styles and directions starting to get widely known and popular enough to break into the mainstream, the additional styles are exhausted or dead already, and the last endeavours are made trying to create something new by mixing them with other genres. In that state was black metal from the late '90s and early '00s. But compared to other styles, this progress was slower and all states longer lasting, probably because of it's minimal effort based and poor quality production black metal didn't gain much popularity in the United States, therefore it was avoided by the profit hungry American music business dump. But in Europe things have been different, and by the appearance of symphonic black metal and other listener friendlier melodic directions, a new, musically declining period have been started. 

   As usual, the current tendencies forced some bands to switch style, others were gone, and some older names seemed completely unaffected. Decayed was this last category, they just kept playing their strongly Bathory influenced compromise-less music led by the same highly productive attitude they've started to play about a decade ago. Decayed became one of the most stable bastions of the genre, by always returning with high quality records. From the late '90s these became quite scarce in genre, especially in it's old school form, and ironically none of them came from Norwegian bands. "Nokthurnaal" had plenty of cover songs as bonus tracks which are giving a hint about the most determining influences of the band, with such honesty that's quite rare to find among black metal bands. On the side of evident classics like Bathory, Venom or Celtic Frost, some quite surprising covers cold be heard. 

Grog - Macabre Requiems (1996)

   After a couple of demo tapes, Grog debuted with the "95 Stabwounds in Your Throat" EP in 1994, that despite the poor rehearsal recording conditions was an impressive record. Two years later by "Macabre Requiems" they've let behind something memorable (a never healing wound, if it might sound better by this concept) in the brutal death / goregrind scene. 

   The an unnecessarily long intro is followed by quite decent songs, that are still sounding quite old school compared to both the late style of the band the current form of the genre. Basically the core of their late works got introduced in pretty enjoyable quality, and it's strongest point was the band's independent aspect of the style. They didn't try to imitate or copy the other, already existing grind/death or goregrind bands, but instead they preferred to build up their own style from the beginning from their own perspective. Death metal and grindcore features are in balance and completing each other well. In similar early records it's more spectacular why the switch from punk to death metal was so much more effective compared to old school grindcore bands. Also this step by step upbuilt is something that's quite missing from the late bands of the scene. At one hand it's understandable, like why bands of the '10s or '20s should pretend like they're experimenting like oldies did in the '90s, but by the lack of this approach the brutal death slamming or goregrind scene turned too homogenic and one sided. And if nearly all bands sounding the same, playing the same and morbid comedy elements are the only factors that could lead to any diversity, it makes difficult to keep larger fanbase at the style longer than a few years. "Macabre Requiems" is not a timeless classic only by it's genuine style or release date, but also because it's like a requiem for the long lost and still missing features of a genre. 

Decayed - The Conjuration of the Southern Circle (1993)

   By the second wave of black metal, new bands started to form in Europe in a wide region scarcely. No independent scenes were formed, like in Northern countries (not even if some groups claimed to form a circle by imitating the Norwegians), partly because there haven't been many active bands by regions, and partly because death metal was still more in focus until the middle of the decade. Even by the lack of a seperated black metal scenes, the regional differences between the mainly influential Norwegian black metal and the newly formed bands were kinda spectacular. 

   Decayed as one of the earliest black metal band outside the North was formed in 1990, and debuted with a quite strong debut. Maybe by this early formation they were able to show an alternate direction of black metal, that definitely had the influence of Norwegian bands, but the same time also showed more analogy with Bathory. Meanwhile the traditional sound of black metal was defined by bands like Darkthrone and Burzum, but Decayed seemed to prefer a more aggressive approach, way better sound and bigger freedom to operate with diverse themes. The other remarkable factor about Decayed was their productiveness, that definitely didn't resemble Northern bands. Their songs were more complex, they were not aware of turning slightly more technical  than how it was usual from black metal bands. Their music somehow more resembled to the South American scene, though they always stayed between the borders of black metal. Or from another perspective: they opened new perspectives for the genre by widening it's borders. In their music the role of atmospheric sound and catchy riffs had complete balance. The first was occasionally assisted by keyboards with slightly symphonic touch, while the epic melodies and heavy metal influenced riffs supported the second. "The Conjuration of the Southern Circle" is one of the most underrated early masterpieces of the genre. And the band kept their trvely compromise-less genuine approach and insane productiveness later on.