Towards Darkness - Solemn   

A variety of styles yields excellent results

Canada's Towards Darkness, formerly The Mass, are an interesting beast that mixes together a variety of different styles including death/doom, drone, dark ambient and funeral doom into an ugly and down-beat package for their debut album, Solemn.

What sets Towards Darkness apart from many of their contemporaries in this field is the way that they approach their gloomy and doom-oriented music. They have a particularly powerful guitar and drum sound that literally punches its way out of the speakers. It's an aggressive approach to doom that I don't think I've heard done quite like this before. Adding an extra dimension of heaviness is the vocals which are screamed down the microphone in a thrashy rasp with a layer of distortion on them as well; certainly a different approach to the typical guttural vocal style of the funeral doom genre.

There is a distinctly hypnotic vibe to Solemn with many passages seeing a particular riff or keyboard/drum medley being repeated several times over and over. Being that the band play at speeds roughly comparable to funeral doom it means that these repetitions go on for quite some time. It may sound a little boring but it is actually quite the opposite and serves to suck you deep within the wall of sound that is pumped out at you.

I don't think the band could have asked for a better production than the one they ended up with on Solemn. It is so clear and at the same time it is incredibly powerful with just a hint of a hiss or maybe static when everything is going at full tilt. Rather than sounding under produced the additional noise actually enhances the sound of the album.

For just over 60 minutes (or 45 if you don't count the drone track at the end) Towards Darkness deliver an interesting and engrossing album that beats you into submission through it's suffocating atmosphere and it's distinctive blending of a wide variety of musical styles and genres. Towards Darkness have truly brought something interesting and innovative to the table with Solemn. There is some hitherto undefined element to it that keeps bringing me back time and time again for repeated listens which isn't something that I can say for many albums I've heard in recent memory.

(Twilight Foundation Records)

Added: September 18th 2008
Reviewer: Michael O'Brien
Score:
Related Link: Official Website
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