Change of direction for Lost in Desolation.
With their first two albums, Josh Young (guitar) and Josh Gee (vocals/piano) developed a seizing Depressive Black Metal, which now metamorphoses into Melodic Doom on Sere, their third opus, released by Talheim Records. The band naturally called on a number of guests to enhance their album.
The album opens with Flesh From Bone, a slow melancholic first composition featuring keyboards and airy leads before welcoming the heavy vocal parts. The ambience is relatively soothing, although it does retain a few weighing elements such as the aggressive blast or the jerky double kick, but the haunting sounds easily carry us through to Anguish and its heady harmonies that contrast with a rather raw and tortured Doom/Death-tinged basis. Melancholy and pain remain present throughout, with the cries sometimes becoming more plaintive to accompany the solid rhythmics, which subside to give way to a violin on The Dream, a much shorter composition that seems almost unreal in its gentleness. It struggles to endure, joined by an ominous flute, howls and drums on Weak and Woeful, the next track, which feeds on a permanent contrast between the different elements of the two musicians’ universe, naturally coupling frantic blast and dreamy leads before returning to dark apathetic sonorities. A few more ethereal elements haunt the final, before Departure Song offers us a real moment of respite between violins and keyboards. The tones are slightly more morose on Unspoken (Prelude), where a few piano notes and piercing strings take us through to Unspoken, a long and massive track that benefits from the addition of mystical choirs to give a mysterious touch to its riffs before returning to heaviness. The vocalist unleashes himself once again, while bass restores a semblance of energy to the composition, which occasionally flares up with shoegaze tinges that eventually fade away, leaving Reunion to close the album, first calmly, then with a jerky rhythm that accompanies it through the web of heady leads.
Lost in Desolation‘s change of style surprised me. There are still Black Metal elements in Sere, but melancholy, gentleness and soothing lead the way, weaving an opaque soaring veil.
85/100
