ALBUM REVIEW: Hadean Tides – Assumption
There is something so grand and expansive, something so cosmic in scale about the doom genre nowadays, that diving into the scene feels like a task akin to launching into space and mapping the stars. Our latest companion for exploring the doomy cosmos with us is Italian quartet ASSUMPTION as they unleash their sophomore full-length Hadean Tides – the follow up to 2018’s Absconditus and their first release as a fully fledged four-piece.
Suitably enough, theirs is an album based on and named after the first geological period of our planet, the echoes of which can still be found today. This fascination with the dawn of the Earth gives rise to a rich pit of influence and direction, and allows vocalist and guitarist Giorgio Trombino, guitarist Maltja Dolinar, bassist Claudio Troise and drummer David Lucido to give a galactic weight to all that they do.
Oration launches the album straight into the stratosphere with pummelling drums and an immediate riff, before Trombino terrifyingly growls “I’m the vehicle of transformation / Fluctuating in a stale uterus”. The songwriting prowess on show here and throughout the record is high tier, cycling through doom phases and death metal barrages, but in such a considered, measured way that they strike the perfect thematic balance of the genres. It’s all a bit miserable and grotesque, but done in this elegiac, almost academic way, it elevates the lyricism and world building to the upper echelons.
Daughters Of The Lotus slows proceedings all the way down to funeral doom levels of BPM. The long drawn out chords and sparse cymbal crashes are punishing in the best possible way. When Trombino spits out the lines “The membrane of my soul is torn apart / Cascading death is a new start” over a bed of frenetic death metal riffage and percussive terror, it lends the album one of it’s most satisfying and destructive moments. Hadean Tides may be an album about the creation of our planet, but it sounds like they’re trying to destroy it all when they get this heavy.
It’s not all big and hefty though. There come two sanctuaries of respite from the cosmic devastation: Breath Of The Dedalus is a vast and expansive instrumental that centres around atmosphere, evoking something between the emptiness and wonder of those early days of our planet, and the soundtrack to The Krypt on Mortal Kombat. Meanwhile, Triptych delivers something of a highlight for the album as a stripped back, spoken word piece that ultimately unfurls into another monolith of death-laced doom. But the poetic, introspective portions of the track are mesmerising, painting a daunting picture that sucks you into the story and the influence.
ASSUMPTION have delivered the goods here in planetary proportions. An incredibly satisfying release, death-doom fans will certainly find what they’re looking for, whether it’s the atmosphere and dangerous tranquillity they seek, or the sonic destruction of civilisations. Perhaps a perfect aural illustration for the planet as we know it now then, let alone four billion years ago.
Rating: 8/10
Hadean Tides is set for release on May 20th via Everlasting Spew Records (EU) and Sentient Ruin Laboratories (USA).
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