Faustcoven (FIN) - Rising From Below the Earth

Faustcoven plays a type of black metal heavily influenced by Black Sabbath, Trouble, and Saint Vitus; Rising From Below the Earth has everything you’d except in a black metal album, but accomplishes through doom metal riffing. There is a slight change in riffing on Rising From Below the Earth compared to Faustcoven’s debut, but the album still contains a good number of traditional doom riffs.

Faustcoven takes the traditional doom riffs in this album and plays them slower and mixes the doomier riffs with slower dissonant riffs; with the combination of the two styles of riffing, the atmosphere comes through thick and dark. Gunnar definitely has a knack for putting together blatantly catchy riffs in a sinister way; however, the riffs are played in a such a way that it creates more of an atmosphere rather an album filled with loads of catchy riffs. But what makes the album so interesting is the desolate, absent approach of the music; its production, song writing, and vocals make the listener feel distanced from the actual music, creating an atmosphere that is completely unique. The atmosphere comes through like a sea of zombies slowly marching after their prey. A change from the first album is the vocals, but it’s definitely an improvement. They now are deep and filled with a huge amount of reverb, which is very reminiscent of Hail.

With the album clocking in at 67 minutes, the album goes by rather quickly; however, the one complaint I have is the lacking of oomph in the guitars, and I think a slight tweak on the production and this album would have much better bang for its buck. This album is for fans of black metal, yet enjoy a traditional doom riff.

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