Fretting Obscurity recounts its tragedy.
Created in Ukraine by multi-instrumentalist Yaroslav Yakos, the project unveils Das Unglückliche Bewußtsein, its second album, on Bitume Prods in 2024.
Melancholy first impression is As In Creation Hour, a first slow dissonant composition that relies on a ponderous rhythmic pattern, obviously giving the guitars pride of place, but also offering saturated vocals gentle keyboard passages to accentuate the ambient misery. Leads calmly and irregularly fly around us, but the rhythmic pattern also knows how to offer majestic tones haunted by cavernous howls, but also how to accelerate, as on Das Heilige, where the approach is initially much more raw, almost borrowing from Black Metal before returning to that haunting sadness that we contemplate while letting ourselves be lulled by the harmonics. Wolf howls accompany the final moments of saturation, as it’s with a soft clean melody that the composition gives way to To Burn Insatiably and its first catchy notes, which are adorned with saturation, then eventually flare up and become aggressive before returning to their dark quietude. The lament continues, exploding again to close the track in rage, before surrendering to gentleness once more on Das Schaudern, where the tepid sound envelops us for a final journey into mysterious limbo populated by sharp unpredictable leads, giving way to a soothing break that darkens without warning to finally die little by little at our feet.
Fretting Obscurity brings despair to life with Das Unglückliche Bewußtsein. Funeral Doom is a very ethereal style with which this project identifies perfectly, but there are also welcome traces of massive violence.
75/100