Helevorn - Aamamata (2019)

Getting over 50 promos a week, sometimes we miss excellent releases like Helevon’s “Aamamata”. Hailing from Spain, this Gothic/Doom Metal outfit took around 5 years to unleash their latest effort, but it was definitely worth the wait. With nearly an hour of music, this release further evolves their sound into more atmospheric and epic territories. If you are a fan of bands like My Dying Bride, The Foreshadowing and similar outfits, this release should be in your collection.

The release opens with the lively riffs of “A Sail to Sanity”, in this opener, the band has their older more direct Death/Doom Metal style, delivered with a catchy bass guitar line and solid tempo changes. The band steps up their efforts with the gut-wrenching “Goodbye Hope”, perfectly blending clean and harsh vocals with subtle piano elements and clean guitars. Josep Brunet signature vocals brilliantly infuse songs like “Blackened Waves” with raw emotions.

As “Aurora” arrives, we are treated to a very atmospheric track with a catchy chorus section and awesome guitar melodies. For those looking for soaring Doomy passages, “Forgotten Fields” features the perfect mixture of atmospheric keyboards, catchy guitars and melodic vocal melodies. One of the most unique and interesting tracks has to be “Nostrum Mare (Et deixo un pont de mar blava)”, and its spoken word sections pared with dreamy acoustic guitars and magical female vocals. We can’t find who this singer is, but her voice magically fits to the mood and atmosphere of this song.

The best track in this release is hands-down the highly atmospheric “The Path to Puya”. This song showcases the band at its best, with a slow atmospheric build-up, crushing Doom riffs, punishing growls and both female and male clean vocals, perfectly arranged. Heike Langhans is the guest vocalist in this track and it infuses it with that extra layer of emotivity that propels the song to new levels.

As the album closes with the mellow “La Sibil-la”, we are left quite satisfied with the epicness and Doomnes of this release. Helevon have been perfecting their craft for a while now and with “Aamamata”, they are ready to be introduced to a wider audience. Luckily for the people in Canada, they will be touring there in May 2019, so be sure to not miss them. This release is definitely one of our early candidate for top Gothic/Doom Metal releases of the year.

Label: Solitude/BadMoodMan

Release: March 8th, 2019

Genre: Gothic/Doom Metal

Country: Spain