Chugging morbidly along with woe in their hearts, Funeral Leech play some agreeably sturdy death-doom. Everything grumbles and chunters like an ancient gravedigger wearily hefting wet earth over his shoulder, the band marking time with solemn nods to the likes of Asphyx, Cruciform and Ceremonium. However, while capably played and possessing plenty of ugly thump there’s ultimately something about ‘Death Meditation’ that prevents it from crawling out of the pit marked ‘yeah, pretty good’. It lacks, I think, both the mossy, filth-encrusted sense of misery exuded by the genre’s 90s progenitors, along with the sense of ambition that sent bands like diSEMBOWELMENT on strange nightmare quests. The spirit and the talent are definitely present, but, right now at least, this sounds like a band following familiar pathways rather than tearing up the map and letting the chill wind take them where it may.
