• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5

I happen to love Funeral Doom, and so I am always happy to give a new band a spin. Done well, no genre is more epic and emotional; and done poorly, none is more tedious. Thankfully, The Howling Void is not tedious at all, and if it falls short of captivating, it comes pretty close. This is a one-man project from a guy not far from my neck of the woods, and San Antonio is the last place I would have expected to find a Funeral Doom act this good.

There are no surprises for the fan here, as The Howling Void offer up slow songwriting, majestic keys, and melodic guitar riffs. The songs are long, the vocals are a muted growl, and the lyrics are odes to emptiness, ruin, and despair. If you are a fan of similar inscrutable bands like Ea then this is a good album to get. The melodies are not quite as involving as they could be, and this is so imitative of other albums it's hard to get really caught up in it, but it sounds plenty fine to my ears.