Labels: Aesthetic Death – Dying Sun – Labyrinth Productions
Review by: Alex Deller
Pretty immense debut from this Portuguese doom act who seem to be taking the likes of Thergothon, Asunder and Morgion as primary influences. Things are dour to the point or wrist-slitting, with plangent notes dragged out over decades while coarse rasps echo down ancient halls and the spectre of black metal glumly rattles its chains in the shadows. One of the tracks – ‘Lamento’ – is based on Grieg’s Peer Gynt suite which sounds mad on paper but makes sense when you consider funeral doom is at its best when imbued with a sense of overwrought grandeur. There’s maybe a bit more finessing to be done before Carma produce the kind of material that’ll have them threatening to dethrone any of the genre’s titans, but even as it stands this is still some seriously impressive stuff.