ALBUM REVIEW: The Illusion Of Time – Funeral Leech
With Death Meditation, their 2020 debut, New York City’s FUNERAL LEECH announced their arrival on the death doom scene with a suitably crushing fanfare. Almost exactly four years later and the band are ready to unleash follow-up The Illusion Of Time – an album with a lot to live up to and which absolutely does not disappoint.
Death Meditation was thematically very much an exploration of death and its effects on the human experience. Coincidentally released just after the UK entered its first lockdown of the COVID pandemic, its claustrophobic view of the world was incredibly fitting for that time, as the world stumbled blindly into what for many would become a deeply traumatic unknown.
Four years on and, while the horrors of that time have by no means disappeared, we have tried to move on from them bearing the scars and memories of those we lost while trying to face the future with hope, despite everything else that has happened since to make that as difficult as it is. While FUNERAL LEECH is not a band to offer much in the way of hope, there is still something progressive and forward-looking on this record which almost resembles a light amid the gloom.
As with their debut, first track …And The Sky Wept begins with atmospheric bell-ringing, although this time the bells are less funereal and are accompanied by what sounds like a distorted monastic chant. A brief thunder of toms rumbles through the speakers to bring us straight into the grimy opening verses, the double bass drum work of L matching the downtuned, syncopated riffing of guitarists Z and A to add a driving urgency to the song’s opening sections. Across its nine and a half minutes the track twists through avenues of old school death metal and alleyways of classic funeral doom, all of them infested with the filth and corruption of L’s dirty, bellowing gutturals.
If Death Meditation was the musical equivalent of a nascent, sewer-dwelling monstrosity making its putrid nest in the darkest depths, The Illusion Of Time sees that same beast sprouting vile new limbs that drag it, howling and weeping towards the surface, seeking new stimulation.
These new “limbs” – to continue an already struggling analogy – are on display in some of the more expansive classic doom-infused passages that are dotted amongst the five songs that make up the album, as well as the use of melancholic synths courtesy of L. Album highlights Penance and the immense closer The Tower showcase this brilliantly. FUNERAL LEECH still very much retains the nastiness and epic scope that made their debut such a success but also show on this album that they are seeking to progress and build on their songwriting, adding a little more light and shade, which is a wise approach given the innovations we’ve seen in this genre in the past twelve months. Fans of MOURNFUL CONGREGATION, CATHEDRAL and ASUNDER will find a huge amount to enjoy here.
Thematically, as the title suggests, with this album the band explores the concept of time itself – particularly the negative aspects of it: that it is a human construct, that we measure our grief and losses through it; that, ultimately, unlike us, it will never end. In a way, given global events in the past four years, this record perhaps speaks to us at this point in our experience just as clearly as DEATH MEDITATION did in 2020.
FUNERAL LEECH have delivered a fantastically heavy second album, the aural equivalent of an unspeakable, freshly-birthed creature hauling itself from the primordial mire to drag itself slowly, plague-ridden and retching, towards the nearest unsuspecting town. Although it may not innovate in the same way as their West Coast counterparts CIVEROUS have with their latest offering, this is still a wonderfully dark album that will grow, mutate and corrupt with every listen.
Rating: 9/10
The Illusion Of Time will be released on 5th April via Carbonized Records.
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