DREAMS AFTER DEATH
EMBRACED BY THE LIGHT (Album)
2011, Endless Winter


1. Genesis
2. Funeral
3. Meeting with the Ancestors
4. The Endless Time
5. From Time Immemorial
6. Outer Space


Vrael : 18/20
(Please excuse the unstable use of English, I translated my review from the French side of spiritofmetal and wanted to share it with you English guys, but as French is my mother language... well, I hope the review is understandable anyway - please send me a mail if you think you can help me correct the text, thanks in advance)


I was walking in nice bright woods, when suddenly, I felt nothing under my feet and fell, I was dragged down by abyssal riffs. Cryptical grunts were crushing my chest and a bleak atmosphere, oppressive, took my breath away.

Then the pain came to me, suffering like darkness in which the horror of death can throw us, a subdued dread similar to an organ funeral symphony lost in the emptiness of a few horrowing piano notes.

I struggled, forced my broken body out of the debris but fell again. Then I was swept away by the waves of an obscur underground ocean’s heavy riffs. As I sunk into the abyss, a glittering guitar melody sprung up and pierced through me. I was taken to rough shores, as if I was carried to them by a ghostly siren drawn by synths.

I was then crawling in an endless desert, which was similar to the Erebs caves, progressing through a midst of synths accompagnied with guitars, and sombre notes of piano immitating the sound of a fateful clockwork. The end of my life - which seemed to have been sucked out from me - was approaching. I was in hell now, alone in the dark, within the howling of the damned... and suddenly, a monstruous titan made of massive guitars and colossal grunts rose, under which I felt more fragile than ever. He surrounded my body with the palm of his gigantic hand and tore the earth to take me, higher and higher, towards the great vaulting of the cave above us, freckled with pale glows... were there the stars piercing through this bizarre fog ? That light was attracting me, and the colossus disapeared underneath me... bewitched, I soared towards the brightness like a butterfly made of smashed bones and bleeding flesh. Their heady synths melody was calling me, my whole being was being sucked away...

The world was divided between this powerful light that obcessed me and the bottomless obscurity... I let a scream of terror out and fell again, my skull still filled with that lethal threnody. I was back under the rock. Maybe I had passed out and had had a fevered dream. My death throes were an agony, having passed long minutes under crushing riffs, my body had gone numb. I was still feeling my life force leaving me, but I was not affraid anymore, I had been Embraced by the Light and I knew she was awaiting me. Her glacial melody started again, like a leitmotiv guiding me to her forever... why should I refuse her embrace ? Whatever I struggle, I am to join her anyway... little by little, the light was blinding me...

I was brutally brought back into the forest. It must had been a nightmare, I must had fallen asleep against that tree. I was welcomed by the rays of the sun, warm and comforting, like a symphony of hope drawn by synths. I closed my eyes and let my spirit lift, fly in sky high, free into open space, surrounded by the stars. Slowly, the music grew dim...


That was how my trip went on while I was listening to this album. Dreams After Death - one man band - doesn’t recreate the genre, he does not introduce any new instrument. But even if the album is homogeneous and coherent, the succession of extremely heavy passages and ambient breaks allows huge tides of might to rise, quite rare in funeral doom. And let’s not forget the undispensable melodies and ethereal atmopsheres that create an abyssal contrast with the roughness of the riffing and vocals. To finish with, the perfect sound quality emphasizes the crushing drums, more present than usual, and the saturation of the riffs which varies depending on the track.
As a conclusion, let’s say that Embraced by the Light doesn’t recreate but at least sublime the genre, it is a unique experience that can make skeptical fans rediscover funeral doom, and for the newbies, it is an appropriate easy access to it.

2012-04-04 01:08:21