Autumnia – O’ Funeralia (2009)

This release is one of the finest Death/Doom metal albums I’ve heard in a few years. Their music is an ode to sadness, because it creates a great depressive feeling that this music should create. Autumnia is a two man band from Ukraine, and for this release they enlisted the help of other three musicians to record piano, bass guitars and violin.

Everybody that knows me knows that I’m a sucker for a good Death/Doom metal release, and this one will make its way to my favorite albums list. Fifthly minutes of pure depressive music make this album a brilliant, much needed release.

The slow and painful guitars are adorned by beautiful keyboard parts, and the violin presence just pushes the overall feeling of the music to higher levels of greatness. The dense and repetitive guitars never get dull since they are adorned by amazing weeping guitar parts and growling vocals. The growls are powerful and never let down, making them a very important aspect of this band. The clean vocals on the other hand, we can do without them since they sound bad and take a bit away from the music.

The keyboards give the right amount of atmosphere to the music, and the piano sounding passages provide the necessary push in the songs to make them greatly depressing and emotional. But my favorite thing is the use of the violin, it’s never over used and it greatly helps the music achieve a very majestic feel. If these two elements where not present this release would be almost labeled as funeral doom metal instead.

I’m very impressed with this third album for these Ukrainians, and I’ll definitely go and dig up their first album. This is a must for fans of early My Dying Bride and similar bands.

Country: Ukraine