It’s not the first time I write a review for a band or project from the Middle-East, and then I’m thinking about countries like the United Arab Emirates (Nervecell), Jordan (Relics Of Martyrs), Saudi-Arab (Al-Namrood) or Iran (Margg, Nathorg, Azooma), but this is my first acquaintance with an act from Syria. Innzmouth (named after a fictive place in the phantasy-world of Lovecraft) is a project by Daemon aka Demon Of Darkness, and apparently this Damascus-born guy is pretty active within the underground scene. He did work with Poland’s Gurthang for a couple of times, but he’s especially active via (mainly Black Metal-inspired) solo projects, such as Blackspell, Dark Promise and Nokturnal Forest. Daemon started this specific project, Innzmouth (the place in Lovecraft’s world was written with an ‘s’ instead of a ‘z’, i.e. Innsmouth), in 2010, and in 2012 there was a first album, Lovecraft’s Dreams, which was released via Satanarsa Records - which he recorded with American guitar player Reverend John Hex. Once again with assistance of this American colleague, Daemon recorded two lengthy tracks that are compiled as Crowned With Abnormality, and which are offered to the audience via the Nitroatmosphericum Records-label, which is run by Astarium's Nikolay ‘SiN’. And allow me to start the next paragraph with ‘waw’!
Waw (so I did…)! What a surprise. I do like most bands / projects I mentioned above (Al-Namrood and Nathorg are truly great, to my opinion; Margg is just unheavenly!), but once again I am completely blown away. Forget I.S. or Al Nusra, forget about Syria’s civil war, and hail Innzmouth. I do not know the full length Lovecraft’s Dreams, but I assure you I will hunt for it! But first things first, and that’s this truly excellent EP, Crowned With Abnormality.
The EP shows an eccentric vision on lovecraftian Funeral Doom, which is based on both tradition and renewal. The leading structures are inspired by classic excellence à la Evoken, Ahab, Thergothon, Shape Of Despair and Skepticism, amongst many others. But at the same time, and that goes for both the title song (clocking fifteen minutes) and They Sleep… (which clocks more than eight minutes), Innzmouth inject this approach with elements that are little different, with inclusion of acoustic excerpts, some dissonant riffs, weird and / or floating keyboard lines, and additional elements from Doom-Death and especially Black Metal (especially within They Sleep…). Besides there is quite some variation in structure and melody, with the use of those synths, with subtle changes and breaks in tempo, or with fine solos. The sound is dense, oppressive, hypnotic and powerful (great production for sure: rough-edged yet decent), and the vocals are abyssal deep, with some grim screams in the second track as well (which refer to Daemon’s former activities as Black Metal artist). Fine too is the distinction in between both compositions, with Crowned With Abnormality dwelling in spheres of bleak and down-tuned tradition mainly, and the second song being more experimental, black-edged and destructive. Yet despite the distinctive approach, both tracks are clearly created by one single entity.