Review: Lamentations by Flesh Temple

Canadian death-doom duo Flesh Temple play a stripped back and elemental form of death metal's slower cousin that showcases melodic construction more than it does sonic ambience. In some ways it harkens back to the styles beginnings when the likes of Autopsy and Winter were slowing their death metal down and discovering a depressive groove that would set the standard for a new genre. That isn't to say this record isn't atmospheric, but Flesh Temple don't utilise keyboards or clean vocals for atmosphere. Instead they opt for grizzly black metal screams and counterbalanced clean/dirty guitars, and in doing so they allow a harsh emotion to come forth without straying into romantic or gothic territory.

'Lamentations' is the band's second release, although two of the tracks 'Tears' and 'Fire, Promise' both appeared on their previous release. They're re-recorded and re-worked for 'Lamentations', and both are much improved versions. Across 'Lamentations' five tracks the band craft a dark and emotive array that is fitted to depressing and bleak lyrics that read like a dispersed piece of stream of consciousness prose, a raw and gloomy poetry. In many ways, I could describe the music this way too.

The track 'Intro' isn't isn't really an intro at all, it's a fully fledged song that bounces between darkly macabre riffs and calmer more atmospheric passages. It gives a good example of everything you can expect to hear in this record though, so in a way the title is fitting, and as an opening track it's a solid start. 'Tears' begins with some melodic apreggios before introducing some Celtic Frost style chugging riffs with fragments of atonality. The band take things into the slower death-doom territory mid-way through and then switch things up a notch with a fantastic section of melancholic harmonies. The vocals throughout are hideously evil, and I mean that in a good way.

'Ice' is a track that changes lanes a few times, starting with some mid-paced heavy riffing before going into full-on death metal mode with a ferocious Obituary style riff; and then just as you get comfortable with this the band go into complete funeral doom territory, minus the organs and gutteral vocals, combining the opening riff with a clean guitar melody that is both atmospheric and visceral all at once. It has those some of those awesome moments you find can in death-doom when things are so slow that the guitar runs out of sustain mid-riff and over the silence you just get the reverberating first hit of the next drum beat. It's an excellently composed track, the best one on the record, that is far simpler than it appears yet on repeat listens doesn't lose any of it's engagement.

'Lament' opens with a harsh vocal roar before moving through waves of groovy death-doom with some more Triptykon-esque parts, and through to some some slower stripped down parts with sparse clean guitars that are heavy on the reverb. It's a remarkably emotional track, but I do wish the band had done more with the final leg to finish to this song. The emotion seems to drop off in the last few minutes rather than continuing to build and there just feels like a missing aspect to this track that could really bring it all together. It feels like several musical movements rather than one complete track, and whilst I have felt a trace of that throughout the record, it is on 'Lament' where I feel it most.

'Fire, Promise' is a really engaging final track, beginning and ending with some epic guitar solos. The main part of the track is a slower and more sludgey affair that reminded me distinctly of Thou more than anything else, and it all combines together in the final third of the track. The parts don't feel as disconnected as on 'Lament', but it does feel like this track ends a bit prematurely and could have been more explorational with it's form.

'Lamentations' is a overall very good album that combines ingredients from across the death-doom spectrum; the grooves of Autopsy, the harshness of Celtic Frost, the poignant nuances of Paradise Lost - all of these components make some appearance throughout this record. I find that the songs do have some discordance in them that the band can seek to improve on. They all flow nicely, but the parts tend to stand best individually and don't always come together to form a song greater than the sum of it's parts. The band are beginning to define a style and sound, and this album shows that they have a lot of promise to keep creating death-doom that brings all the best parts of the genre together.

Listen to Flesh Temple's 'Lamentation's on Bandcamp