Back in January, I made a New Year’s resolutions list of sorts, mostly because I had three goals in mind when it came to music this year. One of these goals was to get more into death-doom and while I am incredibly familiar with bands like Hanging Garden, I want to see what else is out there. While looking through some of the titles up for grabs ’round here, I decided to go in blind and picked SolNegre’s newest album, Anthems For The Grand Collapse as a formal starting point in my pursuit of death-doom knowledge.

In the past, I have written about the Spanish strain of death-doom using Golgotha as a sort of bridge to explain how, despite death-doom having tropes that make it the genre it is today, bands choose to tackle it in a myriad of ways. Golgotha chose to depict their death-doom as more intimate and intricate, layering gothic metal influences into their vocals while also highlighting the deep melancholia that seeped throughout their music. SolNegre builds on that concept in that their music also has that intimate and intricate feel. But, how they get there cements how interesting their choices are. Let me explain.

Anthems For The Grand Collapse starts off with “The Axiom – Song for the Inert II,” a song filled with what sounds like the mimicry of ocean waves and an acoustic intro that slowly fills space. On first listen, I thought I was listening to the wrong album, given my expectations of how and what death-doom – of the modern, melodic persuasion – is supposed to sound like. It would be easy to mistake this as atmospheric black metal, especially with how slow the music is and how the atmosphere continues to build throughout the song. However, around three-fourths of the way into it, melody takes hold. Because the atmospheric black metal influences caught me so far off-guard, the minute this melody makes itself known, I marveled at how it snuck up on me. There’s no break in pace, no change in tempo – everything about this shift is organic and it feels earned. The rest of the album continues building on that melody, slowly molting from the atmospheric to the overt use of synths and clean vocals and sounding more like melodic death-doom the deeper in you get. Of course, the synths are a nice touch – they add to the overall composition, either punctuating the slower moments on “The Hollow Inside” or icing the cavernous tension on “For All that Could Have Been.” It’s probably one of the best uses of synths I have heard recently, as they don’t take away from the music or from the listener’s attention.

This, of course, brings me to the strongest song (and my personal favorite track), “In the Stillness of the Womb.” Everything you have heard – the synths, the acoustic instruments, the mimicry of other instruments – all result into a devastating track that highlights just how good Anthems For The Grand Collapse has been. It reminds me of the tension and grief of Sinistro’s “Amargura,” and although the songs differ in both their presence and presentation, they both have that corta venas quality that makes death-doom (and doom!) from Spain and Portugal so damn compelling. However, unlike “Amargura,” “In the Stillness of the Womb” is intimate, quiet, and sorrowful, a bolero disguised as a death-doom track that strikes the soul with empathy for what the speaker is going through. That track hits like a truck, and you can’t help but just let that song sink into your veins.

Watch out, boleros – Iberian death-doom is on the horizon.

There’s a general stereotype about Spain being a country of hot-blooded, fiery people that have adapted to the Mediterranean climate and land, of strict Catholic guilt and adhering to tradition. However, countries can contain multitudes, and bands like SolNegre show that in spades. Anthems For The Grand Collapse is a fantastic record, one that takes its time and then wrings you out. While the music may sound atmospheric and dissonant at times, it’s a compelling listen and one that will take you away from the daily day-to-day.

— Hera

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Anthems For The Grand Collapse is available now on Meuse Music Records. For more information on SolNegre, visit their Facebook and Instagram pages.