Album Premiere: Fervent – Initiation
From an ancient bog risen, an ardent torrid of death metal bitten. Laugh, dance, sicken. Thou with doom’s curse ridden
Not much is known of Fervent. In fact, nothing is known about Fervent sans the fact they are Finnish. And that they would indeed seem to be “they”, an entity formed of several persons. They seem to have no social media presence, nor is their existence acknowledged in the vast archives of Encyclopedia Metallum. And either Caligari Records, the benevolent hosts willing to unleash Fervent’s de facto debut upon the scarred visage of our world, knows no more than we do, or are bound by sacred oaths of silence. Either way, the fact of the matter remains, all we have is the music.
“Initiation’s” opening chord progress could not possibly scream “doom metal” more obviously if it was written by Iommi, but quickly steps aside in favour of harmonized chugs and reverb-drenched, low-as-all-hell gutturals that seem to drag a few vowels out for the duration of the entire record, with no consideration for diction or lyrics. The song goes back-and-forth between it’s more death and doom parts until at the end a set of eerie keyboard parts escorts the song to it’s climax. “Glowing Rage” pursues a similar objective, but with additional, filthy, mucky groove and more unambiguous death metal countenance. The latter half doesn’t deviate much from the presented, “King In Death’s Blossom” features Initiation’s most intense riffing, couple with blast happy drums and “Hollow Ancient Night”gets some extra mileage out of the synths. With Initiation, Fervent makes an excellent debut appearance, even for a year that’s been sated with great death metal.
The guitar sound feels, at first, oddly thin but it works well whenever Fervent breaks out the leads or the (very occasional) harmonies. The heavy, rumbling low-end and plethora of reverb mostly commend the choice, Initiation is filthy, vile muck, complemented by the backwards drum sound – a hollow and dull, but quiet, almost muffled snare and loud, swishing cymbals. Death metal from a bog-land tomb.
Caligari Records is on The Book ov Faeces, so therein lies your opportunity to seek affirmation and approval from them, or you might just surf directly over to their website. Though personally, I would recommend hitting up the Camp ov Bands. Love the logo by the way.
