The best thing about Gilead Media is that label head Adam Bartlett doesn’t release material he doesn’t believe in. So naturally a certain level of quality is guaranteed. And The Departure of Consciousness, the debut from Fórn is top quality funeral doom.
The 33 minutes of utter darkness found within is merciless in projecting a dreadful atmosphere and the most pained of human emotions. The fact that TDoC just breaks the half-hour mark is merciful however. Not that the listener begs for its conclusion, rather, any longer and the black cloud that chokes out contentment may cast them into an inescapable pit of depression.
The cavernous and ominous doom plods forward with determination and outright power. Weaved into the pervasive terror is a twisted melodicism that draws out a sadness, an ache that can almost be seen as a weakness as it’s forcefully pushed down by a heaving malevolence.
Dark forces dominate the battle between hopeful melancholy (not unlike Pallbearer) and angered despair (in a most Evoken way). Those times when minute cracks appear in the cocoon of brooding despondency provide a glimpse inside but are consistently closed and reinforced by relentless lethargy and seething menace.
Fórn are so good at invoking the deepest, darkest emotions that readily slip away, or rather are swallowed up and discarded, leaving only sound and the sympathetic resonance of tortured souls, a departure of consciousness. Every note of deathly doom strikes a blow with the power of a gravity bomb, exploding across the senses yet pulling the listener inward into the cold, dark abyss it creates. The Departure of Consciousness is a harrowing, desolate exploration of sickening, depressive doom able to plunge reality into a black hole of emotional torture.
Released March 24, 2015 on Gilead Media.
The Departure of Consciousness on Bandcamp (via Gilead Media)
The Departure of Consciousness on Bandcamp (via Fórn)
