Mourning Dawn – The Foam of Despair
Mourning Dawn – The Foam Of Despair
Aesthetic Death
Release Date: 12/01/24
Running Time: 52:25
Review by Oli Gonzalez
7.5/10
Having begun life as a solo project around 15 years ago, Mourning Dawn are on the eve of their latest release “The Foam Of Despair” via Aesthetic Death, with the French act offering up another serving of their Black-Doom sound. A new band to me, what to expect from a band describing themselves as black-doom? With one being known for its sheer velocity and intensity, while the other being known for huge sounds and riffs delivered at a much slower space, I was curious to see how the two would mesh.
The album opens with ‘Tombe du temps’. The sludgey bass line immediately grabs my attention, which is quickly joined by a crunching guitar riff, both of which are delivered at a bludgeoning pace. This definitely leaning more towards the doom end of this black-doom spectrum. There’s an atmospheric quality delivered by a very subtle background synth, and a hypnotic clean guitar arpeggio, giving that black metal style edge. Later in the track, the clever introduction of jazz inspired saxophone passages gives a more psychedelic quality and progressive flavour. It could run the risk of taking the mad-scientist approach and incorporating too many styles but I think it works out well. It’s a similar story with ‘Blue Pain’, though here I think the guitars are given more time to shine in the spotlight. I’m glad too. Some of those tones are absolutely solid and pierce through the mix, taking a simple yet brutally effective approach to composition. ‘Borrowed Skin’ ups the ante in terms of adding to that bludgeoning doom attack. I found myself head banging along to some of those infectious grooves!
So overall, there’s some great individual aspects to the songs and some clear melodic and other hooks. However, I have to address the elephant in the room; the length of the songs. Or more specifically the pacing. Sometimes Doom Metal can be a tough sell, especially given the epic lengths of some songs. I’m all for tactically dragging songs out in order to build tension and to make the eventual crescendo feel worth it. Sadly though, I think some of the songs are running the risk of containing too much filler and being too dragged out. I think this is most prominent in ‘The Color Of Waves’, where sadly I found myself becoming disinterested and tempted to skip to the next track.
With this being said things do get better. There certainly are more highlights to the album. If ‘doomstep’ – doom and dubstep – was ever a genre, I’d like to think I heard it here first via Mourning Dawn. We can see elements of more traditional Doom Metal style riffs being combined with some electronic inspired beats in both ‘Suzerain’ and ‘Midnight Sun’. This offers a rather impressive experimental edge to the band’s sound and I’m wondering if they could take this further in subsequent releases. Fellow countryman Igorrr has built a successful career by creating a unique brand of experimental soundscapes after all.
Although appearing in the middle of the album, I wanted to finish this review on a high and give some much needed love and attention to ‘Apex’, which I think is clearly the crown jewel and highlight of this album. Why? I had a mini-rant earlier about how some of the songs had some great individual hooks but appeared to be too long and dragged out, right? Well ‘Apex’ demonstrates how brutally effective Mourning Dawn can be when they compress all these ideas into a shorter passage without needless filler. Some of those sludgy and crushing riffs are just straight up nasty! I mean that in the most positive way of course! This is something that demands to be played on full volume, with you headbanging along in appreciation. From the background psychedelic synths adding tension and mystique, with the blatantly furious and soaring solo towards the end, this demonstrates what potential Mourning Dawn have as songwriters. This definitely belongs on some Doom Metal compilation album in the future, or genre-specific Spotify playlist. If you only have time for one song, make it ’Apex’.
TRACKLISTING:
01. Tombe du temps
02. Blue Pain
03. Borrowed Skin
04. Apex
05. Suzerain
06. The Color of Waves
07. Midnight Sun (CD edition bonus track)
LINE-UP:
Laurent – Guitars and Vocals
Vincent – Bass
Nicolas – Drums
LINKS:
