Grey November – The Fall of the House of Usher (2011)

All the way from France, today we have Grey November and their latest full-length release “The Fall of the House of Usher”. This two person band commanded by multi-instrumentalist Cédric Seyssiecq delivers a much needed dose of Funeral Doom Metal with some Gothic Doom elements filled with melancholy and despair, just perfect for the cold winter months.

Opening with the 12 minute epic “Pendant Toute Une Journée D'automne”, this song nicely evolves from a Funeral Doom piece into a more powerful Gothic Doom track. Featuring the angelic vocals of Marieke Delanghe, this song nicely builds up expectation for what is next to come in this release. Continuing with a mixture of Shape of Despair and Elend, “Roderick Usher” provides atmospheric keyboards accompanied by ethereal female vocals and some creepy spoken male sections. A few riffs here and there nicely bring this song down to Doom territory.

The expectation keeps building up with “Lady Usher”, a behemoth of a song clocking in at 17 minutes of excellent atmospheric music. The Elend worship returns with “Requiem”, and while we still keep waiting at the edge of our seat for a drop of aggression or something. This aggression finally arrives on the last minutes of “The Fall of the House of Usher” with a very weird mixture of spoken vocals, very hectic (and fake) drumming, and atmospheric keyboards. By this point in time we felt that the whole buildup from this release was excellent, but the culminating moments where a bit disappointing although Marieke’s vocals are just excellent.

Getting into an industrial/darkwave vibe, the “Epliogue” track nicely shakes things up a bit. Before going back to Funeral Doom mode to culminate this release just the way it started. We love bands like Shape of Despairn, Mournful Congregation and Elend, that are masters at building momentum and culminating it with some sublime moments, but we feel that Grey November is still a bit behind them in order to achieve such a daunting task. The band is excellent in crafting atmospheric passages and generating momentum but needs to capitalize on this sometimes a bit earlier and with more exquisite compositions. There is true potential in this band and with “The Fall of the house of Usher” they are one step closer to perfecting their track, so keep and eye on them in the future. If you are interested in taking a peak at this release, head over to the band’s myspace page since it will be worth your time.

Release: October, 2011

Country: France