Review of Tiamat's "A deeper kind of slumber"

What heals our snow-blind weary eyes

When all stars are slain by fiery skies

And every word upon your spiraling cross

Is but a misled sun, a bitter loss

There is sorrow in his eyes. There is pain in his shadows. There is grief in his voice. But Johan Edlund combines all of his suffering into sixty minutes of throbbing aural cataclysm. He starts gently. The first track, "Cold Seed" is almost upbeat. But dare not challenge his romanticism. For amidst the fast rhythmic post metal music lies words of deadly melancholy. He shows us a glimpse of his untiring attempts to break free from the vortex of doom. The "Depeche Mode" type synths add to the grumbling atmosphere, like the lull before a storm. And when the storm hits, it hits with a silent apocalyptic thunder.

The higly experimental sounds are scattered throughout the album. "Trillion Zillion Centipedes" and "The Desolate One" sound more like the intro track of a lounge album. The chanting vocals reminisce of Enigma but there is no slow buildup of ecstatic outburst like one would expect. The music trudges along at the same rhythm and the same beat like a prayer.

Floyd makes a comeback in the latter tracks starting with "Atlantis as a lover". The spacey, dreamy guitar work and soothing vocals remind you of the hallowed vocalists of the legendary band. Combined with neat ambient backdrops like the swishing of waves which make you feel as if you are sitting at the far end of a deserted beach on a silky black night, the tracks effortlessly teleport you into the sinister netherworlds hidden beyond the chasms of your mind.

"Only in my tears it lasts" is a gloomy archaic composition of love lost in the depths of time. It entices you to bring back those sad memories which nobody wants to bring back and then derives a sadistic pleasure once it does its job. The proof is there in the tears that come flowing from your organs of sight.

The best should come last and it is the last section of Tiamat's "A deeper kind of slumber" that shakes the very foundation of your emotional nerve rack. Ignore "The whores of Babylon" and you will enter the realm of sepulchral paradise. Starting with the timid instrumental "Kite", the heart wrenching "Phantasma De Luxe" will deluge you with neverending sorrow. There is immortality etched in the very words that whisper in your ears.

This dole crowner gallows me

As this mere welkin hallowed be

Whereupon I trick and train and tire

To limn my umbered love in fire

Before this noble mare bewrays

As I clearly see it decays

In debile coil of smoke suspires

If this is not enough, the grand finale, which is the title track, should finish you off with a thundering clasp of emotional drainage which will rob you off all your worldly desires. The poetic, grieving phrases combined with haunted synths cast a spell that cannot be negated. And it best you leave yourself in its wake. For it is futile to break away from the deep slumbering music of Tiamat.