Slow — VI - Dantalion
The Belgian band Slow have existed since 2007 and are the brainchild of the Belgian musician Déhà , who participates in more than a few other projects, the most famous/ known to me is Drone / Black / Noise project Yhdarl- at present Slow is currently a duet. The discography of Slow has six full-length albums. Earlier this year, I reviewed, IV Mythologiæ which was a Redux version of the bands 2015 album- so I’m familiar with the project. Like that release this new album appears on Belgian label Code666, which is a sub-label of Aural Music. VI - Dantalion appeared in November 2019, and is the sixth full-length album from the band. It's released in several versions - Purple & Black Marble Double LP, Translucent Purple Double LP, Digipack CD, as well as in digital form.
The album cover is an image of thunderclouds and lightning sparkling inside. On the clouds on the right and left of the cover are two ghostly face- I’m guess, these are the faces of the band members. At the bottom of the cover, where the shade of the clouds is it’s darkest, and in a classic white font, the name of the group is written. Below is the title of the album in the same color and font, but smaller. The overall color scheme of the cover is almost monochrome with a pale purple tint. Honestly, I'm not very taken by the cover art. It just felt banal and very well not thought out. However, despite this, the art has an atmosphere and well suited to the music of the album.
The total duration of the album is rather long - more than one hour and eighteen minutes. The album consists of seven tracks of different lengths, from almost five minutes of the first track "Descente", which is more like the introduction to the album, to the seventeen-minute track Lueur.
Over the album Slow present us with a very thick, rich, heavy and atmospheric Funeral Doom, full of background keyboard parts and quite interesting melodies. The overall sound of guitars and keyboards is so intense that it creates the feeling of a wall of sound or a sound funnel into which the listener falls. Guitars play a major role here, playing heavy and slow riffs, supported by unobtrusive keyboard parts that either follow the guitars, or burst forward, introducing a new melodic development and changing the balance of sound and adding a bit of symphony. There is also a certain number of moments played on an acoustic guitar. In my opinion, it fits very well into the overall sound picture. As for the parts of the drums, they play a secondary role as a rhythmic instrument, putting emphasis only at certain points. But this technique is characteristic of Funeral Doom, therefore it is not a negative point. The vocals are presented as a low, boiling growling, which is very suitable for this style of music and for the overall sound of the album. While listening to the album, I caught myself thinking not of single compositions- but instead got lost in the sound stream of the album. But the final track called "Elégie" pulled my mind into the real world. This track is a synthesizer sound track with an acoustic guitar part. Quite interesting, calm melodies mix together ambient and some semblance of classical music, gradually returning the listener to reality for sixteen minutes. And despite the rather long duration, the whole album is listened very easily and imperceptibly.
When the one hears the phrase Funeral Doom, you can already have a idea of what to expect. And for the most part this album does what you expect. However, with the original approach to sound, composition and melodism present though-out this album - maybe I’d say that “VI - Dantalion” is one of the best albums in the Funeral Doom genre this year. The band have developed the idea embodied in thier previous albums, bringing something new, but also remaining within the framework of the Funeral Doom sub-genre.