Review: Mourners ‘Act I: Tragedies’

Considered to be a continuation of UK doom legends Eye of Solitude, funeral doom duo Mourners released their debut record back in April of 2020. Remember April? When we thought shit couldn’t get any worse? Well, Mourners obviously knew something we didn’t, and crafted up Act I: Tragedies as a lament to the lives we used to know.

Mourners 'Act I: Tragedies'

Apparitions feels like it’s JUST going to be the standard choral intro to this kind of monolith funeral doom, but defies expectations by becoming an unholy thunder with a mournful melody soaring above. This leads into the massive The Way Of Darkness, a song where the weight of the oppressive misery battles against the vast riffs and roars to be the heaviest thing here. With the mournful drone of organs in the background, and a delicate piano addition at the end, Mourners show immediately that they’re truly a legacy band. If anything, Souls Breathing Nothingness is even slower and more churning. These tracks are impassive cliffs of granite riffs, carving emotion from barest stone and gloomy canyons. Call me a sucker too, but I do like when a track ends with a fade out like Souls Breathing Nothingness.

impassive cliffs of granite riffs, carving emotion from barest stone and gloomy canyons…

Lost is breathing room, but a room where there’s ironically little air to save you from suffocating. The solemn spoken word of Ansu Enthroned is haunting, and the behemothic guitar work that accompanies it brutalises your mind. With music this slow and lacking in variety (that sounds like a complaint but it really isn’t), you really have to pay attention to the little dynamic shifts; the minor moments hidden in the murk. Mourners are masters of threading subtlety into the inexorable crawl and crash of riffs.

Rounding out the album with the melancholic mass of Forms Of Delusion and the titanic, weeping Journey In Fear, Mourners‘ debut is a truly harrowing piece of funeral doom. Although it is the birth of something new and powerful, it feels like a final goodbye to Eye Of Solitude; a soul breaking goodbye to a loved one. This crushing, poignant and truly monstrous ode to sorrow is Act I it seems, and long may the tragedies continues to supply us albums like this. Wow.

Label: Personal Records
Band Links: Facebook | Bandcamp

Scribed by: Sandy Williamson