Band: Depressed Mode
Title: For Death.....
Label: Firedoom / Firebox
Distribution: LSP Music
Release date: 16/03/2009
Review: CD

Originally started as a Funeral Doom solo-project by Ossy Salonen, Depressed Mode soon transformed into an impressing band. Based on the high quality of the first demo, Firebox Records offered the band a two-album deal. The first result came in 2007 and was called Ghosts Of Devotion. That album brought an impressing mixture of symphonic Doom-Death and Funeral Doom with elements from other genres. During Summer last year, the band entered the Ansa Studio with Jori Haukio (co-production, mix; also session musician) and the album, having duration of forty six minutes, is somewhat different from the debut. Still ..For Death.. brings symphonic Death / Doom majesty, but the Funeral Doom-approach has mainly gone now. The album opens with the track Death Multiplies, leading my thoughts and first impression to older demo-stuff from bands as Sinoath (Forged In Blood), Phlebotomized (Devoted To God) and even The Gathering (An Imaginary Symphony and Moonlight Archer). The extremely darkening and oppressing atmosphere and the rather varying composition go for the other Symfo-Death hymns too, and the same goes for the addition of great influences: (traditional) Gothic, Gothic Metal, Doom and Black Metal. Every track differs from each other, every single piece consists of unique parts (this impressing level of variation is pretty unique within the Doom-scene!) and even though I must think about so many other bands, the approach of Depressed Mode is an own approach. Other interfaces are early Bloodthorn, Dagorlad, early Darzamat, My Dying Bride (e.g. The Scent; even the vocals and lyrics remind me to MDB’s Aaron) Baphomet’s Throne, Book Of Black Earth, Love Forsaken, Avrigus (like the title song), etc, yet Depressed Mode are able to create their own Doom Darkness, incorporating the best elements of those bands and genres into some superior elegies of pain, sadness and despair. The early Funeral Doom-influences do appear only sporadically (e.g. the opening riffs of title track) and personally I am possessed / obsessed by this independent genre; but in this case the evolution from Funeral Doom to Symphonic Death Metal has come with such a natural flair that I cannot but express my adoration!

94/100

Ivan Tibos.