DAXMA – Unmarked Boxes
Release Date: 19th November 2021
Label: Blues Funeral Recordings & Majestic Mountain Records
Bandcamp
Genre: Post Metal, Doom.
FFO: Novembre, Callisto, ISIS, MONO, Mountaineer.
Review By: Martha Skourteli
Sometimes you need or want to listen to some music that will softly massage your brain. Sometimes you require these sounds that take your soul and carry it protectively somewhere that you feel safe.
In times like the above, I think a great option is to choose something in the area of post metal/ post rock. If you can combine a few harder and doomier notes to add the extra little something that will enhance the volume of feelings you may need to focus on while still keeping relaxation happening, then you’re in for really soothing music that can ease your heart and open that third eye that can reveal wisdom, but of course not at the expense of quality.
The above is what you can find in DAXMA‘s music. DAXMA are based in California, and they move in the fields of Post Metal/ Doom. They have already released one full length and 2 EPs, while they’ll present their new creation Unmarked Boxes on the 19th of November through Blues Funeral Recordings and Majestic Mountain Records.
These 6 songs are inspired from the poem Unmarked Boxes by the 13th century Persian poet Rumi. The poem itself is talking about how one has to accept inability to change fate and how everything happens for a reason. This idea is taken by DAXMA and expressed in their own poetic way, in songs that are dressed in very nicely expressed post metal tunes and are marvellously enriched with heavy enough parts where the doom style takes over. We get 4 long songs with lengths varying from 9+ to 13+ minutes and 2 instrumentals (always good to see instrumentals in albums) of 4+ minutes.
Throughout the whole album one feels like being out in nature, probably up on a mountain gazing at the horizon and just realizing the beauty of life but also the ugliness of the human existence that is made to have no willingness or power, or ability to change things but rarely.
Musically, the album is highly qualitative, and the band members do a really good job performing their parts of the songs. The most impressive element of all compositions is the combination of guitars and drums that can really light a fire in the atmosphere and add volume to the sound or pull you down to calmness and offer melodies that touch the soul like the wind’s caress. That change in the feelings presented is really beautifully done. Moreover, some wonderful violin and piano touches are found here and there, and we all know that these instruments have the magic wand when added to songs.
There are not too many lyrics or too many vocals either, but where we do have vocals they mainly just add to the calmness. Female vocals combined with this music can bring to mind the sirens from Odyssey and their mesmerizing voices.
I did love how the titles of the songs make phrases!
“The Clouds Parted” (song 1) “And The Earth Swallowed Our Shadows” (song 2).
“Anything You Lose” (song 5) “Comes Back In Another Form” (song 6).
The last phrase made by the two titles of songs 5 and 6 is by word part of Rumi’ poem. How can you not love details like these?
Overall, Unmarked Boxes is an excellent release with very engrossing songs that deserve to be heard and known, created from a band that I’m pretty sure has a very promising future.
(5 / 5)
