A new chapter opens for Aphonic Threnody.
Following his dark creative impulses, Riccardo V (all instruments, Dea Marica, Gallow God, Towards Atlantis Lights…) has enlisted three vocalists for his eighth album, Grace My Heart.
Let’s welcome Déhà (Acathexis, Cult of Erinyes, Wolvennest, Imber Luminis, Maladie, Silver Knife…), Delora (formerly Lurking, Lux Incerta, Moonskin…), and Gévaudan (Anthropovore, In Hell, Supplices, Muertissima, formerly Demande à la Poussière…).
The title track Grace My Heart is the first to offer us gentleness and melancholy, beginning with a few piano notes followed by the vocals, and finally the distorted riffs that add weight but do not alter the atmosphere of the song as it slowly unfolds, allowing the vocalists to call and respond to one another. The variety of screams adds an interesting texture to the haunting foundation, and the lament suddenly intensifies before giving way to Blood of Gods, the next track, which begins in the same manner and also features a heavy rhythm section to provide a peaceful backdrop for the tortured vocals. Waves of harmonics build, carrying us toward And Solace I Did Not Find after one final gasp, restoring tranquility for a spellbinding outro before the new track establishes a two-minute stretch of unsettling darkness until the first screams emerge. The track fits perfectly into Funeral Doom’s tradition, easily surpassing ten minutes of gloomy yet utterly captivating mist, and while the tone shifts quite drastically at the end of the song, Destroy Your Will to Die takes over with another distinct shade of melancholy, once again disrupted by visceral roars that even border on DSBM. The sound breaks apart, then resumes once more with a Black Metal tinge as it moves into Hooded Claw and its hypnotic approach, where clean vocals and screams dance together over the spellbinding leads, haunting them with a heart-wrenching, ghostly presence – just as on Why Did You Go and its mournful tones that take center stage. Here again, the vocals are perfect for creating a striking contrast, drawing as much from Doom as from Gothic Metal and its soaring melodies, while the keyboards offer a more majestic approach on A Promise, a track that is, once again, quite polarizing, yet features both the most accessible and the rawest elements. Although the album is already quite long, the band wasn’t going to leave us without a glimmer of hope, embodied by My Fire Will Live Eternally and its undeniably sepulchral sounds – which recall Chopin’s well-known Funeral March – but which, once again, allow the vocalists to reign one last time over these desolate lands and offer us this final moment of painful poetry.
If you like Doom Metal, you’ll love Grace My Heart. But if you really take the time to listen to it, the album offers much more than that, allowing Aphonic Threnody to craft a new, high-quality, dark lament.
85/100
