Asphodelus – Sculpting From Time
Release Date: 25th August 2023
Label: Hammerheart Records
Bandcamp
Genre: Death/Doom Metal.
FFO: Evoken, Katatonia, Paradise Lost, Tiamat, My Dying Bride.
Review By: Paul Cairney
Four years after their debut, Finnish Death/Doomsters Asphodelus have returned with their sophomore opus, Sculpting From Time. From the outset, you realise that Asphodelus have managed to raise the bar from their relatively solid debut.
All 8 tracks on offer are deeply rooted in what has become the bands signature atmospheric death/doom sound, a genre where they demonstrate supreme confidence and belief in their collective abilities. Each song is crafted and honed, whilst not quite to perfection, to a fairly fine replica of what perfection could potentially be, should the listening environment be conducive.
From the album opener, ‘Waterside’ to the closing notes of ‘Sculpting the Time’, you will be entranced by that majestic riffs, the slight hint of melancholic sorrow and the overall sense of fulfilment that Sculpting From Time provides you. Impressively harsh vocals stand out alongside the clean guest vocals provided by Lassi Salminen (Distant Stares), with singer Jari Filppu excelling on most of the tracks. It is an album that welcomes you in and lets you disembark as a better person, inculcating a deeper appreciation of death tinged doom in your psyche.
In recent times, there has been a multitude of doom albums, blackened doom, death doom, doomy doom, a whole plethora of music where doom is the cornerstone where bands can occasionally struggle to imprint their own identity. Asphodelus have no such issues. Sculpting From Time is an album that should help the band entrench themselves in an increasingly competitive genre, giving others a blueprint of how it should be done.
Sculpting From Time may well be the definitive Death/Doom album of 2023.
(4.5 / 5)
