Track Premiere: Convocation – “Graveless Yet Dead”
Vines grow amongst the dilapidated pews, snarled into clumps vaguely humanoid in shape. The church had fallen into disrepair in the years since the town was abandoned: some say the townsfolk left for greater prosperity in the surrounding villages, while still more recount tales of a haunting that caused them to flee in terror. Whatever the case, on this night, a solitary figure shambles down the aisle; it reeks of earth—and the disinfectant that marked its final days. The corpse holds a faded photograph in its hands as it bows in prayer: the family it left behind. A church organ blares unattended, and Convocation‘s funeral doom saturates the air.
“Graveless Yet Dead” marries hollow, bellowing death growls (so reminiscent of a vacant coffin) with angelic choirs courtesy of Shape of Despair‘s Natalie Koskinen. The impact is that particular sense of obliteration that only this genre can create—a sort of waiting room between life and death. There’s a processional quality to the massive, melodic chords that evokes the downturned faces of pallbearers; the march of tears down cheeks. When a violin’s weeping song surfaces through the riffs, the sense of loss only becomes more tangible. This is slow music for a rapid descent into grief; an aural elegy for the loved ones we can only hold in dreams.
No Dawn For The Caliginous Night releases on November 24, 2023 through Everlasting Spew Records.
