This has been out long enough that those who want to know about it will likely know about it already, but hey – I wanted to say some good words before the years ticked over. In what seems like no time at all Portland’s Ossuarium have made the leap from promising demo to staggering full-length, with ‘Living Tomb’ catapulting the band into the upper echelons of death-doom royalty. Each woebegone dirge is masterfully constructed, but what really sets Ossuarium apart is their grasp of balance and dynamic … the sound swirls effortlessly from majestic to mournful to monolithic, knowing exactly when to raise its proud head and when to bend it low to meet the chopping block. It’s a towering and imposing work of granite-hewn, moss-clad supremacy, and if there’s any sort of shadow being cast on their achievement it’s in wondering just where the band might go from here.
