Experience had taught me to mistrust Funeral Doom Metal one-man projects. The scene is plagued by worthless shit, bedroom projects that grow up fueled by depressed kids that think that the only thing they need to make their band is a cheap guitar and a drum machine.

Funeral Doom is exploding in terms of popularity, but you still have to look to the 90s to find the good bands. CATACOMBS is the exception to the rule; and I mean THE exception, because Xathagorra Mlandroth had proved that it is possible to create extremely competent extreme Doom Metal using just the will of one man, but at the same time he is the living proof that you need a lot of creative resources to achieve success. This EP, the first of the “band”, that now has been re-issued with remastered tracks, is the continuation of the man’s previous project HIEROPHANT (already reviewed here), and it is fantastic and complex inside its rawness. The dreadful wall of sound created drives the listener into a noisy trance, and the growling indeed seems to crawl from the deepest catacomb.

Highly recommended for fans of ESOTERIC, SKEPTICISM and basically anyone who likes his/her Doom crude as fuck.

(Online April 9, 2008)