Shamael – Melancholie Der Engel
Release Date: 15th April 2021
Label: Satanath Records
Bandcamp
Genre: Funeral Doom
FFO: Shape of Despair, Doom:VS.
Review By: Lucas Di Mascio
Shamael is a Funeral Doom Metal one-man-band from Italy. Raffaele Galasso performed, mixed and mastered the music on Shamael’s debut album and while this genre isn’t known for it’s skill-centered guitar shredding, impressive vocal performances or intense drumming, the only thing the musicians of Funeral Doom need to excel at in order to be considered “good” in my opinion is the effectiveness of the music’s atmosphere. Yes, a good amount of the music – even on Melancholie Der Engel, is going to be plodding, sustained chords with the drums just being there to accent and add weight to the chords. The vocals are going to be drawn out guttural growls with barely any definition in their sibilance or recognition of what the words being grunted could be. While Raffaele doesn’t do anything to veer from the beaten path of what the staples and shortcomings of the genre are, it’s undeniable that Melancholie Der Engel is a formidable release amongst its contemporaries due to the attention to detail in the mix. If you’ve heard Funeral Doom before and it did nothing for you, I implore you to give this record a chance because it’s production is so clean and the emphasis was focused in the right spot – creating the atmosphere of the album.
The opening track Leaf isn’t that long (for Doom metal standards) and is a great way to introduce not only the band but the genre to someone. The keys, while quite simple, are effective and while they don’t really change much across the album they do their job as an atmospheric element. Now I’m going to do something I don’t usually comment on because I find it’s pretty inconsequential to the quality of the music, but I had to say it for this release: the album art is a perfect representation of the feelings evoked by the music. The distorted face screaming from the darkness haunts you from the moment you look at it and all throughout the listening experience. Where atmosphere and emotion are so important in this genre, every little thing that’s done well helps the end product. There aren’t many songs on this album, but they are long and they all seem to flow into each other. One pair of songs that had a weird transition to me was Crown Shyness and Way of Woe – just the way Crown Shyness ends and flows in the next song is a little off putting if you are listening back to one song. Not sure if that was a design choice or a mistake in the mastering. That being said, Way of Woe is one of my favourite tracks on this release because it’s when the dynamics in the music finally become more realized – some creepy whispers with dissonant clean guitar notes in the background are quite effective when sandwiched between the plodding distorted guitar sections.
The final track, Monsoon, is the longest of the bunch clocking in at around 13 minutes long and it’s got the fastest sections in the albums. The dynamics are even more present here with a solo violin playing out near the middle of the song. By the time this song was over I felt that the album had said and done what it had set out to do, any longer and I think Shamael’s debut may have become a war of attrition for it’s listeners – it ended right when it needed to. I think as far as Funeral Doom Metal goes, this is one of the better releases I’ve heard in a very long time – simply because it’s production is great. The songwriting is barely anything to phone home about with this genre, and I still feel that’s the case with Melancholie Der Engel, but the atmosphere is what makes Shamael’s first album work and I hope it’s explored further in their future releases. 
(3.5 / 5)
