Album Review: Funeral Leech - Death Meditation
Reviewed by Paul Hutchings
If thick heaving slabs of death doom is your thing, then you may well be interested in this pulverising debut release from New York based Funeral Leech. An album that contemplates our fragility, and never more relevant than now, this is either going to be an album that you love or hate. Formed in 2015, the band has slowly gained a momentum that has seen them gain slots with such notable bands as Antichrist, Aura Noir, Black Anvil, Demoncy, Dispirit, Heresiarch, Innumerable Forms, Shape Of Despair, and Spectral Voice.
Opening your album with an eight minute plus track suggests that you are not going for the easy win and that is the position that Funeral Leech take with the bludgeoning ‘Downpour’. What’s more impressive is that drummer Lucas Anderson, who is pounding several shades of shit out of his kit is also able to add demonic death vocals as well. Anderson is joined by the duel guitars of Zack Chumley and Alex Baldwin and bassist Kevin Kalb.
The haunting ‘Statues’ is next, walls of riffs cascading, the changes of pace reminiscent of the mighty Bolt Thrower in their prime. An evil, eerie feel shimmers over the whole piece, the acceleration from suffocating doom to faster death metal captured superbly. And so, the album continues, with four further massive chunks of doom/death metal. The wall of noise moves slowly, enveloping all in its path with the choking intense power. ‘Lament’ is an enormous, cavernous outpouring of power, the driving riffing combining the gargantuan bass and drums as it travels on the unstoppable journey. By the time we reach the concluding track, the all-enveloping ‘I Am The Cosmos’, all 8:41 of it, the brain will be a puddle of melted jelly.
Funeral Leech don’t alter their style greatly throughout this record. They mark all settings to level and then proceed to batter the listener for the next 45 minutes. It’s huge, it’s destructive and above all if you want it heavy then it is ideal.
Death Mediation will be released on 17th April via Carbonized Records
