While death-doom can benefit from complex, layered arrangements, it also thrives in the absence of just that. My Dementia, a Portuguese band who draw from the early British style of the genre, strip away much of the genre’s trappings in favor of a stark, riff-driven minimalism. Led by burly, forceful growls and backed by a rhythm section that studiously avoids overplaying, the band’s debut full length lays bare not only the powerful bones of their sound and their striking arrangements, but the heartfelt passion behind the record. This is, sonically, something like vicious traditional death metal brought into array to fire off exceptionally downcast riffs. The album takes its time wrenching negative emotions out of each dolorous interval — and the careful use of pauses act like agonizing, heart-in-your-throat lurches throughout.
We’re streaming the album here in full – listen below.
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Vocalist/guitarist Miguel Carneiro, who tragically passed away after the album was produced, is the architect of much of the sonic grievances the album holds. His forays into clean, chant-like passages turn songs like “Gloom’s Light” into something surreal — not so much sad as mysteriously terrifying. There is certainly some clever arrangement at work on this track, but the choral layers come in only after the guitars’ point has been well and thoroughly made. Employing riffs that use just enough notes to lock in around his vocals and adding only essential percussion to underscore them proves to be what make My Dementia’s debut album so persuasively somber.
The band comments:
This album is deeply personal to us. It has become a posthumous release after the passing of our frontman, who left us shortly after the mixing process and before the album could see the light of day. The title — Premonição, translated to Premonition in English — now carries a heavier meaning, as his lyrics eerily foreshadowed the events that followed.
Musically, the listener will be immersed in the crushing weight of doom and in the nostalgia of the early ’90s death/doom scene: slow-tempo melancholy interspersed with ominous, aggressive death riffs.
Miguel’s words on how fragile and temporary life is will echo forever:
“In the deep of the abyss / The past of an unlived life / A future that hurts even more / Nothing to live for / A soul rotting / In a pending life.”
Premonição: só me arrependo do que não vivi now stands as a tribute to his life and work, immortalizing his voice and artistry. Miguel’s spirit will live on forever in this work.
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Premonição: Só Me Arrependo Do Que Não Vivi Releases May 8th via Caverna Abismal Records.
