Godthrymm is reborn.
Formed in 2017 in England by Hamish Glencross (guitar/vocals, ex-Vallenfyre, ex-My Dying Bride, ex-Solstice) and Shaun « Winter » Taylor-Steels (drums, ex-Anathema, ex-My Dying Bride, ex-Solstice), the band is completed by « Sasquatch » Bob Crolla (bass) and Catherine Glencross (keyboards/vocals) for the release of Distorsions on Profound Lore Records, the label that also released the debut album.
Melancholy immediately invades when As Titans, the first track, opens with airy melodies. Intense male vocal parts add an extra raw touch to the dark rhythm, which then calms down to let a soft clean female voice appear and bewitch us before saturation returns, accompanied by luminous keyboards followed by haunting leads. The sound eventually fades out, leaving Devils and its catchy groove to take hold of us, before joining in with vocals and their strange hypnotic power, sometimes aided by the backing vocals of Maggy and Polly-Jean Glenncross, who add an interesting dimension. Softness returns with the arrival of Echoes, but darkness ends up tinting this airy slowness with transcendent leads that transport us out of time, leaving vocal parts to provide a comforting human touch, before Obsess and Regress once again weigh down the disquieting mix. The two voices answer each other in this whirlwind of dissonance that progresses through heavy tones while crazy guitars start to accelerate towards the end, accompanied by Al Kotwal, the band’s live guitarist, as well as a solid double kick, which leaves us on Unseen Unheard where the band will welcome Scoot Gladok (Doom, Extinction of Mankind, ex-Vallenfyre) to create a greater vocal diversity that perfectly combines with the most explosive part of this contrasting and changing rhythm. The sound takes on dark Gothic accents when the words of Aaron Stainthorpe (My Dying Bride) join the two vocalists on Follow Me and its saturnian accents, which gradually turn into a gentle glimmer of hope towards the end of this long track, but the gloom takes over again, before leaving us to Pictures Remain, the last track, which slowly floods us with its softness thanks to a few airy notes and the keyboardist’s voice, joined by a heady saturated rhythm before fading out for good.
Melancholy lives on more intensely thanks to Godthrymm, who manage to capture its very essence in Distorsions, a long but very rich album where Doom slowly spreads like dark smoke into the distance.
90/100